Allegations of bribery levelled against President John Dramani and his National Democratic Congress (NDC) ahead of this year’s presidential and parliamentary elections indicate that Mr Mahama is taking the same spending path he took ahead of the 2012 elections, Nana Akomea, Director of Communications of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has said.

According to him, that course resulted in the Mahama administration running an unprecedented deficit of $4.2 billion dollars (12%) four years ago, the highest in the history of the fourth republic.

“It is this reckless deficit in 2012 that caused the weakening of the cedi to become by mid-2014, the worst depreciated currency in the whole wide world. It is that record deficit in 2012 that caused donors to suspend assistance to Ghana for fiscal years 2013 and 2014,” Nana Akomea said in a statement released on Thursday August 18.

“The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has accused President Mahama of vote buying and abuse of incumbency. This GII accusation has followed President Mahama's open distribution of large quantities of outboard motors for fishing at an NDC campaign event last Monday right at the start of his official campaign.

“So, after all these years, President Mahama cannot distinguish between an official government occasion and a partisan political party campaign event/occasion. President Mahama seems to be starting on this same path of vote buying again right at the start of his 2016 campaign.

“For a government that claims to have delivered so much development to the Ghanaian people, and whose ‘one-touch’ victory is assured”, Nana Akomea wondered: ‘Why this resort to abuse of incumbency and bribery of the electorate?’ Or, is it the case that President Mahama discovers charity when elections are due?”

The statement further urged Ghanaians to “rise up and save our economy from further destruction by President Mahama by showing him and his government the red card on 7 December”.