Education is the heartbeat of Ghana’s future. It is the single most important investment in our youth, shaping whether they rise to global competitiveness or remain trapped in cycles of mediocrity. Over the past two decades, Ghana’s education system has been defined by two contrasting traditions: the New Patriotic Party (NPP), which has consistently expanded access and improved outcomes, and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), which has repeatedly reversed progress, leaving behind systemic failures.

Kufuor’s Vision: The Four-Year Senior High School

President John Agyekum Kufuor’s administration introduced the four-year Senior High School (SHS) system, a bold reform that gave students more time to absorb content and prepare for WAEC examinations.

• WAEC pass rates improved during the four-year cycle.
• Teachers reported reduced pressure and better preparedness among students.
• More students qualified for tertiary education, strengthening Ghana’s human capital base.

This was a reform rooted in foresight, prioritizing the long-term success of Ghanaian youth.

Mahama’s Reversal: Back to Three Years

President John Mahama’s government scrapped the four-year SHS, reverting to three years. The decision was driven more by political expediency than educational logic.

• Students were rushed through syllabi.
• WAEC failures increased, particularly in core subjects.
• Teachers expressed frustration at the collapse of standards.

Recent WAEC statistics underline the damage: in 2025, Core Mathematics pass rates dropped from 66.86% in 2024 to just 48.73%, while English fell from 66.98% to 56.76. These declines are not abstract numbers, they represent thousands of young lives disadvantaged by poor policy choices.

Akufo-Addo’s Free SHS and Teacher Allowances

President Nana Akufo-Addo’s Free SHS policy, launched in 2017, was a landmark reform. For the first time, financial barriers were removed, allowing every child to access secondary education.

• Over 5.7 million students have benefited since its inception.
• Enrollment surged nationwide, bridging the gap between rich and poor.
• Gender parity improved, giving girls equal opportunities in education.

Akufo-Addo also restored teacher trainee allowances, boosting morale and attracting more young people into the teaching profession. Motivated teachers translate into stronger classrooms and better student outcomes.

Mahama’s Attack on Teachers

Mahama’s government scrapped teacher trainee allowances, claiming fiscal unsustainability.

• Teacher morale collapsed.
• Fewer young people pursued teaching careers.
• Classrooms suffered from shortages and declining quality.

The correlation is undeniable: demoralized teachers + underprepared students = mass WAEC failures.

The Brutal Truth

The evidence is clear:

• NPP reforms (Kufuor’s four-year SHS, Akufo-Addo’s Free SHS and teacher allowances) expanded access, improved outcomes, and motivated teachers.
• NDC reversals under Mahama destroyed progress, fueled exam failures, and crippled Ghana’s education system.

Mahama’s tenure represents a dark chapter in Ghana’s education history. His policies prioritized politics over pedagogy, leaving Ghanaian youth disadvantaged in global competitiveness.

Final Word

If Ghana is serious about building a future of excellence, it must reject the destructive reversals of the NDC and protect the visionary reforms of the NPP. Education is not a playground for political experimentsit is the lifeline of our nation.

European lithium refiner Livista Energy said on Monday that it has formed a partnership with African miner CAA Mining to set up a conversion facility in Takoradi, western Ghana for the processing of lithium.

Livista aims to convert spodumene, a mineral with lithium content, produced in Ghana into an intermediary lithium chemical at the facility, which would then be exported to the company’s European plant for further refining.

Building local lithium refining capability in Ghana would provide employment opportunities and deliver new sources for the African country’s gross domestic product, said Martin Kwaku Ayisi, the chief executive of Minerals Commission Ghana.

Demand for lithium, a key component of electric vehicle batteries, has jumped in recent years as the world transitions towards green energy.

CAA had already been granted a license to mine in the area next to the Ewoyaa Lithium Deposit, currently in development by Atlantic Lithium Ltd.

When completed, the plant is expected to generate over $15bn. in revenue over its life span.

Livista’s European facility is expected to begin production in 2026.

Washington DC, USA (GS) In spite of its current high inflation rate and the rapid decline in the value of the Cedi, Ghana is still the brightest spot among the economies of the 15-nation ECOWAS bloc.

Many developing countries have witnessed their economies decimated due to the global hardship resulting from the pandemic, supply chain challenges, skyrocketing cost of energy, and food prices. Countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea have suffered a catastrophic collapse of their economies.

Ghana, under the leadership of Vice President Bawumia, who heads the country’s Economic Management Team (EMT), has been able to adopt clever and innovative policies aimed at preventing the country from spiraling into the untenable economic conditions prevalent in the EDOWAS sub-region.

Many Ghanaians have recently been grumbling about the steep decline in their purchasing power due to the high rate of inflation and the rapid depreciation of the Cedi which affects imports and exports, especially in the lead-up to this year’s yuletide. However, thousands of youth in West Africa and from all across the continent, who are suffering under the weight of unstable governments and abject poverty still, regard Ghana as a great destination for better economic opportunities.

Three distinguished financial and development writers of the IMF; Analisa R. Bala, Adam Behsudi, and Nicholas Owen did an analysis of the country’s determination to maximize local revenue generation mechanisms and the integration of Ghana’s economy into the global business protocols. Read their analysis below.

How do you tax a person you have no record of? Or a property you never knew existed? In Ghana, the government is using digitalization to overcome these challenges and grow its revenue and economy.

The West African country is working to consolidate a database of taxpayers, establish a digital address system, and harness a burgeoning mobile money system. The goal: increase tax revenue, improve transparency, and ensure compliance.

“It is possible to be born in Ghana, to live a full life, to die and be buried, and there will be no trace of you on any documentation,” Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia said in a recent speech.

One of the main pillars of Ghana’s initiative is simple—establish a reliable record of its population of roughly 31 million. Through its Ghana Card initiative, the government has so far been able to enroll 15.5 million people with the goal of covering most of its adult population by the end of this year.

Behind every card is a unique national identification number, biometrically enabled through fingerprints, that will be the entry point for everything, including filing taxes, opening a bank account, registering a SIM card, obtaining a driver’s license, or renewing a passport.

Most importantly, the identification number doubles as a tax ID, allowing the government to widen the tax net among economically active adults. This is critical in a country where the revenue-to-GDP ratio has lagged behind others in the region.

The more numbers that are issued, the wider the tax net grows. Under the old system of tax identification numbers, only 3 million had been registered, said Maxwell Opoku-Afari, first deputy governor of the Bank of Ghana, the country’s central bank.

The same effort has gone into documenting properties in a new national digital address database. Using GPS, Ghana’s Land Use and Special Planning Authority have identified 7.5 million properties that can now be added to tax rolls. 

The Ghana Revenue Authority is bolstering the collection of taxes and fees by conditioning renewal of driver’s licenses and professional licenses on tax payment. A new government portal, Ghana.gov.gh, provides a one-stop shop for a range of government services that can be handled online and can prevent losses to corruption. Ghana’s Revenue Assurance and Compliance Unit is also stepping up audits of large companies, especially those involved in the country’s sizable mining and resource extraction industry.

The electronic collection of fees and taxes and other tax measures introduced in the 2022 budget should help the country significantly increase its tax-to-GDP ratio, which is currently 12 percent, to about 16 percent at the end of 2022, said Opoku-Afari, who also sits on the board of the Ghana Revenue Authority.

“We are coming at it from all fronts—digitalization, compliance, enforcement, and cleaning up loopholes—to be able to raise our tax-to-GDP ratio over the medium term to a 20 percent target,” he said.

This comprehensive digitalization initiative is bringing progress, albeit gradual, in revenue collection. Any future success, however, could get a boost from the country’s robust and unique mobile money system.

Ghana has one of the most active and fastest-growing mobile money markets on the continent. It was also the first country to create a system that is completely interoperable between the country’s three mobile networks and with bank accounts. For example, a person using a mobile money account provided by mobile phone service MTN can make a payment to someone who uses Vodafone. Funds can also be transferred from a mobile wallet to a traditional bank account.

Unlike in other mobile money systems, the Bank of Ghana oversees all transactions through its subsidiary, Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems. There are roughly 19 million active mobile money accounts.

This system forms another pillar of the government’s digitalization agenda. It has also introduced a powerful tool of financial inclusion the government is seeking to leverage.

As part of the 2022 budget, Ghanaian legislators considering an e-levy on electronic transactions, which would apply to mobile money payments, bank transfers, and merchant payments. The 1.75 percent tax would apply to transactions beyond the first 100 Ghanaian cedis ($16) a day and provide a new source of revenue.

Ghana has one of the most active and fastest-growing mobile money markets on the continent.  

The government sees the e-levy as an opportunity to bring a growing portion of economic activity, much of it covering the informal economy, into the tax net. However, some argue that taxing mobile money transactions could send people back to cash and reverse a positive trend.

“The e-levy is a way of extending these services in terms of a social contract and everyone participating in the payment of tax,” said Opoku-Afari. “The question is more about creating a careful balance between financial inclusion and revenue generation.”

The Bank of Ghana is also working to launch a pilot of a new central bank digital currency, the e-cedi, later this year that could further widen the availability of financial services.

“The next challenge is to equip the tax administrator with the capacity and technology to leverage big data. That’s where there’s still some work to do,” said Albert Touna-Mama, the IMF’s resident representative in Ghana.

The private sector, which has already been involved in several initiatives, is looking to harness government data to add value for users.

“The government’s work is putting the foundation and making it easy for the private sector to put the building blocks on top,” said Patrick Quantson, chief transformational officer for DreamOval Limited, a Ghanaian fintech company. “I think, fundamentally, the work the government needs to do for this digital investment is to open it up from day one.”

(credit: Bala, Behsudi, Owen)

I wanted to get a new SIM to complement the one I already have. Then I decided to patronise a road side sim vendor and the unexpected happened. 

During registration, I gave out the needed details to the vendor and the registration was going on smoothly until it got to capturing.

Usually, you are expected to be captured once but the vendor captured me twice and that made me suspicious. So I queried him but he gave a flimsy excuse.

Immediately after the registration, I got a welcome text message indicating I registered two numbers instead of one

I asked why two numbers registered in my name instead of one, the vendor said “it’s normal, that sometimes the issue is from the network operators”. 

The next day, I went to Glo office to lay a complain and the moment I mentioned what brought me, the manager there said

“these guys again? Why doing these to innocent people”?, that was when I realized the gravity of what just happened. The second number was deregistered, the case was reported and the guy was picked up.

Questioning the vendor, he said they usually use people’s details to register other sim cards which they resell to “car trackers” at a higher price. 

On further interrogation, he confessed that he uses people’s details to register sim cards which they sell to fraudsters, ritualists, kidnappers and he makes a lot of money from the business.

Now, imagine if he sold this second number to a kidnapper or a fraudster and when tracked, my picture and details would pop up and it would be difficult to deny.

I’m putting this out here because a lot of innocent people are in prisons today because of cr!me they know nothing about.

While doing your registration, please be attentive and report any suspicion to the right authority.

Thanks Let’s Be Guided Please.

I really admire the President and the NPP’s commitment to making secondary education free for all, and not be a hindrance for the poor or deprived. THIS IS SUPER GOOD.

But surely, we should run our free education in a way that helps the young people, the state and the economy as a whole.  Whilst lauding the opportunity for all to have secondary education, the few years of implementation points to several practical challenges – stifling the economy, collapsing private schools and  businesses and creating lots of hiccups in the smoothness we’ve known with our secondary education.  And this is why it surprises when the Government consistently insists on not ‘reviewing Free SHS’. 

Let me say, I pity the government for getting a bad name for what it does out of good intentions for the people of Ghana. 

But the sure fact is that good thought isn’t all that it takes to satisfy a people and prosper a nation. The good thought must be carried through a strategy of pragmatism, truthfulness and objectivity; otherwise this good intention would give the NPP more bad name – and I could predict that many parents who enjoyed the freedom from payments, and even the students who went through this free education, would vote against the NPP one day soon.

 And this is simply because, we asked our governments to get our children opportunity to experience secondary education. We never really asked them to give our children food for free! If they choose to do so, they may, but must do it effectively – not compromise the training and knowledge we asked for!

It’s surely best to give all qualified Ghanaians a chance to secondary education, but should free education mean ‘FREE FEEDING’? In the countries that we are often proud to mention as successful education and economies, FEEDING IS NEVER FREE. 

Rather, every opportunity is availed for qualified young persons

• to have admission into schools

• to have a good, reliable and consistent academic calendar 

• to have the best of all the needed facilities for teaching and learning generally for free

with teachers and other staff who are well motivated to teach and guide the students to learn.

As know it now, Free SHS is a veritable yoke around the neck of government, the economy, parents, the GES, teachers, and the students themselves. The promise we hear is that an improved economy would help deliver a better free SHS programme. BUT the sadness is that the Free SHS as we have it now would even hold us back from developing a prudent state expenditure, a reasonable balance of payment and sound economy which would reenergise and grow itself and its people!

In my next issue, I’ll share my suggestions on our secondary education saga. But surely, the answer to the Free SHS issue would be from technocracy and objectivity – never through politics!

Thank you, Compatriots for your kind attention. 

 Yaw Sekyi

July 9, 2022

Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics in the department of Environmental Health and Engineering at John Hopkins University (USA), has for, some years, embarked on a mission to compute inflation rates in several countries, especially developing countries. On social media, he was not known to Ghanaians until he recently tweeted (in July 2022) that “Today, I measure inflation in Ghana at a stunning 49.35%/yr. In a last ditch effort, the govt has begun negotiations w/ the IMF on a bailout deal. Another IMF loan won’t save Ghana’s economy.” In another tweet on July 3, 2022, he wrote “On June 30, I measured Ghana’s inflation at a stunning 49%/yr — almost 2x the official inflation rate of 28%/yr.”

Ghana is not the only country whose official inflation rate is, in the opinion of Steve Hanke, grossly under-reported or manipulated. On May 21, 2016, he tweeted “Nigeria’s implied inflation rate is 58.6% (“official” = 12.7%), meaning their Central Bank’s *lie* coefficient = 4.6.” (By the way, inflation rates are typically computed by statistical agencies, not central banks. Nigeria is not an exception).

On June 10, 2022, Steve Hanke tweeted “Today, I accurately measure inflation in Pakistan at 40.95%, nearly 3x the bogus official inflation rate of 13.76%/yr. Pakistan MUST mothball the State Bank and install a currency board.” Egypt, Sudan, Turkey, etc, according to Steve Hanke, have under-reported their inflation rates. In his opinion, they are liars (his lie coefficient is his computed inflation rate divided by the official inflation rate); their  central banks are inefficient; currency boards are better. That’s Hanke’s mantra and agenda. 

In this article, I shall argue that on statistical, methodological, and theoretical grounds, Steve Hanke’s computations are dubious. 

Steve Hanke’s methodology is not novel. It is based on the well-known  theory of purchasing power parity (PPP). It is the simple proposition that, once converted to a common currency, the prices of goods and services in various countries should be the equal. Thus, it is also called “the law of one price”. Suppose a pair of shoes costs $100 in the USA. According to PPP, if the same shoe costs 800 cedis in Ghana, then the exchange rate should be $1 = 8 cedis. Suppose the shoe costs 700 cedis in Ghana but the exchange rate is $1 = 8 cedis.  Then consumers in the USA will increase their demand for the shoe in Ghana because it costs them $100 in the USA but costs the equivalent of 100*(7/8) = $87.5 in Ghana. This increase in demand for the shoe in Ghana will increase the demand for cedis till the cedi appreciates in value from $1 = 8 cedis to $1 = 7 cedis, resulting in the same price of the shoe, at this new exchange rate, in both the USA and Ghana (according to PPP). This process under which economic agents take advantage of differences in prices is known as arbitrage.

The preceding discussion assumes that arbitrage will take place. But what if USA consumers must incur shipping and transportation costs to buy the shoe from Ghana? Then the arbitrage incentive will not be strong. So, if transportation costs exist (a reality), PPP is not expected to hold. The second limitation of PPP is that not all goods are traded internationally. PPP may not hold for koobi, gari, haircuts, kenkey, housing services (rent), trotro services, etc because these goods are not significantly traded between Ghana and the USA, for example. Not all goods in a country’s consumer price index (CPI) are internationally traded. These are limitations of using PPP to estimate inflation rates.

Let E be the exchange rate between the cedi and the dollar, defined as the number of cedis required to buy a dollar. Let Pg (in cedis) be the price of an item in Ghana and let Pu be the price (in dollars) of the *same* item in the USA. Then PPP implies that:

Pg = E*Pu. …….. (1)

This is what is known as the static or absolute version of PPP. The dynamic or relative version of PPP is derived via algebraic manipulation of equation (1) and may be written as:

Percentage change in Pg = percentage change in E plus percentage change in Pu. ……. (2)

or

Inflation in Ghana = depreciation/appreciation of the cedi plus inflation in the USA. …….  (2a)

We can rewrite (2a) as

Percentage change in E = Inflation in Ghana minus inflation in USA …. (3), 

where percentage in E is the same “depreciation/appreciation of the cedi”.

Steve Hanke, unlike statistical agencies, does *not* collect data on the prices of a basket of goods and services. He uses market exchange rates (in some cases, black-market rates) and official inflation rates reported by the USA’s Bureau of Statistics and a variant of equation (3) to solve for  the inflation rates of Ghana, Pakistan, Nigeria, Turkey, etc. Note that he assumes that the inflation rates reported by the USA’s Bureau of Statistics are accurate but believes that the inflation rates reported by several other statistical agencies are wrong or deliberately manipulated. He does not provide any justification for his skepticism. 

Jeff Frenkel (1976), in a seminal contribution, tested the validity of relative PPP using the 1920s hyperinflation in Germany.  Steve Hanke admits that equation (3) or relative PPP is likely to be an accurate method for computing inflation *only if* inflation is very high. He adopts Cagan’s (1956) threshold of 50% monthly inflation. Before he computes his inflation rates, where does he get the inflation rates to determine the 50% threshold for the countries to include in his analysis? These must be official inflation figures. Why then does Steve Hanke claim that he is applying relative PPP to high-inflation economies and yet cast doubt on the official inflation rates reported by the statistical agencies of some countries?  It is also known that relative PPP is likely to hold only if the cause of the high inflation is excessive growth of money. The recent  increases in inflation in Ghana, for example, was not caused by excessive growth of money. 

To test the validity of relative PPP, researchers do not use Hanke’s approach. It is not surprising that none of Hanke’s work on this subject appears in journals with high technical standards. Researchers test the validity of relative PPP by estimating the equation in (3). They use market exchange rates and official inflation rates to estimate equation (3) and then test whether their estimated parameters are statistically significant. Because they use official inflation rates in their statistical analysis, they do not — unlike Steve Hanke — turn around to cast doubt on those official rates, regardless of whether their tests support or reject relative PPP. These researchers assume that the inflation rates reported by the statistical service of the USA and the statistical services of other countries are accurate. Steve Hanke assumes that only the USA’s reported inflation rates are accurate. Hanke does not follow standard statistical methods in testing the validity of relative PPP. He *assumes* that relative PPP is valid and applies it indiscriminately, including to periods when countries are not experiencing hyperinflation. 

Steve Hanke computes inflation rates for various countries, although they are routinely computed by statistical agencies of those countries, because he wants to paint a bad picture of central banks. That was why he referred to a so-called *lie* coefficient for the Central Bank of Nigeria, although he ought to have known that it is the Bureau of National Statistics, not the Central Bank of Nigeria, that computes Nigeria’s inflation rates. By claiming that official inflation rates are grossly under-reported, he wants to give the impression that central banks are incompetent in controlling inflation. In his opinion, “… the Achilles’ heels of these countries (developing countries) are their crummy little central banks. They basically make everyone poor.” OK. Just don’t use dubious methods to make your case. 

Even if Steve Hanke is right that the inflation rates of some countries are under-reported, it is for the wrong reasons (so many wrong reasons, as explained above).  When we don’t find official inflation rates credible, we question the weights assigned to various commodity groups, look at out own experience, albeit narrow, with inflation, etc. I note that, in addition to the overall inflation rate, the Ghana Statistical Service also computes inflation rates for several subgroups of goods and services. Therefore, anyone worried about inappropriate weights may look at the inflation rates of various  subgroups. Steve Hanke should pay research assistants to collect data on the prices of goods and services in the countries whose statistical agencies he disparages. Try that, Steve. 

*References*

Cagan, C. (1956). The monetary dynamics of hyperinflation. In Milton Friedman (ed). Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Frankel, J. (1976). A monetary approach to the exchange rate: doctrinal aspects and empirical evidence. Scandinavian Journal of Economics. 

Hanke, S.H., and Kwok, A.K. (2009). On the measurement of Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation. Cato Journal. 

Hanke, S.H., and  Bushnell, C. (2017). On measuring hyperinflation: the Venezuela Episode. World Economics.

On December 15, 2013, Ghanaweb.com reported His Excellency John Mahama as saying that “Ghanaians have very short memory”. With some qualification, I agree with you, your Excellency. I crave your indulgence to modify the statement to read “some Ghanaians have very short memory”. On this we have a perfect agreement.

Indeed, “Some”, not “all” Ghanaians have very short memory. Your recent statement (February 7, 2022) on how to solve the multiples of problems facing the Ghanaian economy leads me to think that you are among the Ghanaians that have short memory. And given that you suffer from this debilitating disease called “short memory” your latest statement will be securely saved for the future, in the unlikely event that you become President again.

Your Excellency, you are right that the Ghanaian economy is troubled on many fronts. The debt level has risen astronomically; budget deficit is high; inflation is rising, and cost of living is soaring. As you put it, urgent interventions are needed. Your recommendation for a Senchi-style dialogue on the economy is hard to disagree with. I have always thought of governments of developing economies beset by structural problems, including ethnic divisions, to do all in their powers to seek and foster national consensus. It helps minimize unnecessary tensions and focus national attention on the critical issues.

But, Your Excellency, before we get to Senchi important issues in your statement deserve closer scrutiny. That examination should allow us to establish consensual frame and context before we get to another “Senchi Consensus”.

The 2022 troubled economy is vastly different from the economy you ran between 2009 to 2013 as Vice President and Head of Economic Management Team and 2013 to 2017 as Head of State.

The first issue I want to address is the economic growth dynamics. In 2013 when you became President, economic growth (7.1%) dropped to half of what it was in 2011 (14.4). From this point, the economy went into downward spiral, reaching a low of 3.4% in 2016 when you suffered the most crushing electoral defeat of the Fourth Republic. In 2015, when you finally crush landed the economy into the arms of the IMF, growth was only 2.2%, the lowest since 1984.

Your Excellency, you do not have to explain to us what was going on. You may lack accurate recollection of events – since you are among our compatriots who suffer from “very short memory”. Fortunately, some of us do remember that nothing catastrophic had happened. We do remember that between 2011 and 2015, your government had received more than US$2 billion from crude oil export. Eventually, the oil bonanza fetched your government US$3.4 billion between 2011 and 2016. And we do remember that the world had exited the financial crisis.

Your Excellency, despite receiving such hefty amounts from oil, you ushered us into the era of hiring freeze. Trained Teachers and nurses, having struggled through their training without the regular allowance implemented since the 1970s, also faced, for the first time, a blockade from the public service. Your time in office gave this country and the world the terminology DUMSOR, which Wikipedia, (the free encyclopedia) defines a persistent, irregular, and unpredictable electric power outage. The effect of Dumsor on businesses and households continues to linger. The ever-rising joblessness directly emanate from the combination of Dumsor and the freeze on public service employment.

Your Excellency, under your watch from the period 2013 to 2017, more than half a million Ghanaians became poor (GSS, 2018). This was the first time since 1992 that the absolute number increased in Ghana. This was the economy you left for Ghanaians.

Your Excellency, the idea of organizing a national dialogue on the economy in times of economic difficulties is appealing. But the specific mention of Senchi makes it harder for me to go along, especially when you want the current managers of the economy to take “a page from it”. As a citizen, the Senchi Forum was a complete waste of scarce national resources; and for the participant, I believe it was a waste of their time. Let me explain.

Your Excellency, those who participated in the dialogue did not know that it was a prelude to acceding to an IMF programme. Your government had always insisted that the great ideas shared at Senchi crystalised into the so-called Homegrown Fiscal Consolidation programme which you presented to the IMF for support. This is curious and almost certainly untrue. I have read the 22-point Senchi consensus many times. I have also read the IMF Extended Credi Facility document. Your Excellency, where in the Senchi Consensus was there an agreement for your government to freeze employment in the public sector; and where was there a consensus to reduce real wages?

Your Excellency, most certainly, the Senchi Consensus contained great ideas. However, your government failed to implement them. Point 15 of the Consensus read as follows:

15. An investment programme to deal with the energy crisis must be put in place as a matter of urgency in order to propel growth, employment, competitiveness, and macroeconomic stability.

A year later, Dumsor had intensified. The celebrities held the Dumsor demonstrations on May 17, 2015. Obviously, your government failed to follow the “investment programme to deal with the energy crisis”.

Like many other things under your watch as President, the Senchi Consensus was already moribund before desperation led you and your government into the cold arms of imperial IMF. In the first and only progress report on the Consensus presented to you, in December 2014, the Implementation Advisory Group (IAG) hosted by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) conceded that implementing the Senchi Consensus was encountering difficulties because of the inability of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to provide cash, and due to the lack of data.

Your Excellency, point 14 of the Senchi Consensus asked your government for “amendment of the Bank of Ghana Act to set a ceiling on its lending to government that is based on government’s revenue collection in the previous year, rather than the current year as is currently that case. This should be separated from the ceiling on total net domestic borrowing by government”.

Even this simple amendment, which did not require funding, you could not do. Instead of limiting borrowings from the Bank of Ghana, your government in 2016 borrowed 65% more than you had said you will from the BOG. This is how you and your government trashed the Senchi Consensus; and this is the Consensus from which you want the current government to learn from. We hear you!

To err is to be John Mahama

Your Excellency, in your epistle you asked: “How come we do not have a much-needed post-COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan that would lay down a firm blueprint for fiscal consolidation in the face of a worsening economic situation”?

This question is important for a couple of reasons. First, it provides evidence of your very short memory or your hypocrisy or both. You and people of your ilk have deliberately failed to recognise the times in which this country and all other countries find themselves. This is 2022, two years after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and less than a year the virus mutated into Omicron. Without underrating or ignoring the mistakes of the current government, I want to remind you, Your Excellency, that COVID-19 happened, it has not completely abated, and its ramifications continue to reverberate around the world. A chunk of current economic difficulties is COVID-19 induced!

The rising debt you referred to is true, but it has happened across the globe. If you google you will see that America’s debt has hit $30 trillion. Global public debt increased by nearly 30% in 2020. You mentioned rising inflation, which is also true. But remember that the current inflation is 12.6%, compared to 15.4% in 2016 when you were the president; and it was 17.7% when you threw in the towel and handed the country to the IMF. Also be reminded that globally inflation is on the rise. America’s inflation has hit 40 year high. You talked about E-levy, which you described as “neither adequate nor viable as a sustainable response to the crisis”. This, we will certainly save for posterity.

Your Excellency, let me end with the following Italian words: “Chi poco pensa

molto erra” [He who thinks little, errs much]