Washington DC, USA (GS) There is deep acrimony among members of the inner circle of President Akufo-Addo’s government over the seeming poor treatment and lack of respect shown towards Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia by some Cabinet Ministers and members of the President’s immediate family.
In Ghana’s economic leadership structure, the Vice President serves as the head of the country’s Economic Management Team (EMT). He presides over meetings of the EMT and serves as the chief negotiator in all top-ticket financial deals and is a promoter of economic policies rolled out by the government.
However, the political cabal who hover around the President and the Office of the President, have manhandled the Vice President, relegating him to a proofreader of documents produced by the Finance Ministry headed by Ken Ofori-Atta with the support of his cousin Gabby Otchere Darko.
On October 25, 2022, the majority of the members of Parliament of the ruling New Patriotic Party, (NPP), in an unprecedented political move, left the floor of Ghana’s Parliament to organize an impromptu news conference to publicly inform the entire nation and President Akufo-Addo that they do not have confidence in the country’s Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
According to the spokesman for the aggrieved NPP MPs, Hon. Andy Kwame Appiah-Kubi, MP for Asante Akyem North, the NPP MPs’ have been defending allegations of conflict of interest, lack of confidence, and trust leveled against the leadership of the Finance Ministry, headed by Ken Ofori-Atta.
The allegations made by the NPP MPs against the Finance Minister; conflict of interest, lack of confidence and trust’, was first made by some members of the opposition National Democratic Congress, (NDC), as far back as 2020 during the so-called Financial Services Clean Up exercise that cost the nation about 12% (GHC 12 billion) of its GDP according to some estimates. Databank Financial Services, which was co-founded by the Finance Minister, has been accused of charging exorbitant fees running into several million dollars for its involvement in securing government loan deals. This is why NPP MPs in their demand for the removal of Ken Ofori-Atta from office, accused him among others, of having a conflict of interest.
The financial sector clean-up resulted in many depositors, through no fault of theirs, having their capital and savings locked up whilst the Finance Ministry was in the process of setting up what has now become known as the Consolidated Bank. The effects of this financial clean-up exercise were devastating to businesses and affected consumer confidence in the banking sector.
NPP government is halfway through its second term, however, not a single top official of the collapsed banks has been held accountable for their alleged roles and decisions that led to the collapse of those banks. The ordinary Ghanaians, their businesses, and their investments became the casualty in the end.
The Vice President, according to sources at the Jubilee House, who did not want to be identified because they are not authorized to do so, raised many questions about how the financial clean-up exercise was being prosecuted and the cost to the nation and the stability of local commercial activities as a result of the freeze on billions of bank deposits that were needed to inject capital into the economy, which was facing challenges in the midst of the Covid pandemic.
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, and Gabby Asare Otchere Darko are cousins and family members of President Akufo-Addo. The trio, Ofori-Atta, Otchere Darko, and the President, is what some people in the opposition NDC have termed as the so-called ‘Akyem Mafia’.
Whilst Vice President Dr. Bawumia was engrossed in designing economic programs to generate local revenue through the utilization of financial services technology, business automation, and integration of the Ghanaian economy into the world business protocol, the cousins of the President were rather focused on loan acquisitions and mega deals in the fossil fuel and minerals extraction.
The actions of the President’s cousins and their public statements led to a huge bad press for the ruling Party. The political firestorm that was sparked by the botched PDS and AGYAPA deals is still fresh in the minds of the public. Social media, radio, TV, and other online portals and blogs, as well as the print media, were awash with commentaries and agitations for and against the deals.
The so-called ‘Akyem Mafia’, was saved with a counter-positive argument. NPP was quick to posit that through the intervention of Vice President Bawumia, Ghana was able to save hundreds of millions of US Dollars in renegotiated energy deals entered into by the previous John Mahama-led NDC administration that saddled the country with enormous debt in the energy production sector. Therefore claims by some in the public and opposition members that Ofori-Atta and his cousin Otchere Darko and even the President himself were at fault in negotiations leading up to the deals that never materialized, are simply not true.
When the Electronic Financial Services Levy (E-LEVY) law was being considered, the Vice President had misgivings about it. Dr. Bawumia, according to sources, was of the view that, in order to reduce the effects of the levy on the ordinary citizens, businesses and corporate Ghana should rather be encouraged to use the banking system to send out paychecks to employees, who will be required to open bank accounts and pay for banking services which attract indirect taxes, encouraging the use of cash registers at medium to large scale retailers to help in tracking of sales to reduce tax evasion, and a bump in the tax rate for foreign remittances to Ghana.
Concerns of Vice President Bawumia were ignored, and the presidential cousins were able to convince their kinsman, President Akufo-Addo, to brush aside any inputs from the Veep’s Office, with a belief that the huge revenue that was expected to be generated from the E-Levy, would be enough to fill the gaps in the holes of Ghana’s budget and deficit situation.
In less than six months since the E-Levy law was passed along strict party lines amidst heated arguments from both the inside of the chamber of Parliament and outside among the public and party supporters, one of the cousins, Otchere Darko was on Twitter, telling the whole world how poorly the E-Levy tax was performing, claiming that only about 10% of the expected revenue had been realized.
This infuriated the EMT headed by Vice President Bawumia. The Veep was of the view that it was premature, without authorization, to disclose unvetted sensitive economic data to the public. The Vice President’s concerns were re-echoed by the former Finance Committee Chairman of Ghana’s Parliament, Mark Assibey-Yeboah, who condemned such unverified public assessment of such a novel national tax law that had barely taken effect. Once again, the public backlash received by the NPP government and the EMT headed by Bawumia, as a result of such an unguarded tweet from one of the cousins, is anybody’s guess.
According to sources close to top-level executives at the Jubilee House, the President’s cousin, Otchere Darko’s intention was to prepare the ground and the minds of the public for the introduction of an International Monetary Fund, (IMF), program that his other cousin, Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister, had planned with him on the blindside of Vice President Bawumia. As to what exactly Otchere Darko’s portfolio is within the Finance Ministry or the EMT is shrouded in mystery.
Jubilee House sources hint that Dr. Bawumia, many Cabinet ministers, as well as some leading MPs were very furious when a presidential letter was leaked to the effect that President Akufo-Addo had directed Ofori-Atta to commence talks with the IMF on how to stabilize the deteriorating economy.
NPP members, opposition NDC supporters, independents, and political pundits were all in disagreement about the government’s decision to seek economic refuge from the IMF, with its attendant harsh austerity measures that Ghanaians envisaged the Akufo-Addo administration would prevent from happening.
The immediate past President, John Mahama, sensing a political opportunity amidst the chaos, traveled to the United States and gave a lecture/speech during which he blamed the economic woes facing Ghana, as well as the world, on the covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and rising food and energy prices. However, in less than four weeks, John Mahama was back in Ghana, accusing the NPP government and its EMT of incompetence in the handling of the Ghanaian economy, without acknowledging the basic facts he alluded to in his own speech in the U.S., as the problems bedeviling the world economy.
The ex-President then went on to advise the NPP to hurriedly embrace an economic bailout program from the IMF and even offered to allow his former Finance Minister Seth Terkper to be part of the negotiation team due to his vast experience in such high-level consultations.
Surreptitiously, President Mahama was making such statements to deliver political jabs at his possible future presidential election opponent, Dr. Bawumia, knowing well that his fellow Dagbon indigene has been sidelined in his role as Vice President in the decision-making protocols at the presidency by the cousins who are in lockstep with their kinsman the President.
Dr. Bawumia is undoubtedly the most popular politician in Ghana today. Two subjects that have created some dent in his stellar record were all created by the cousins of the President. The IMF bailout and the E-Levy law, two issues that the Vice President was able to avoid during the first term of the NPP government, have become the main drawback in the first half of the second term.
One can observingly realize that during the debate over the introduction of the E-Levy tax, the public was expecting Vice President Bawumia to make public statements to either support or kick against the new tax, but the Vice President has remained quiet about the issue and avoided answering queries about the subject. Again, since the commencement of their so-called negotiations with the IMF team on a possible bail-out for Ghana, the Veep has had little to nothing to say about it. The presidential cousins are in charge.
Some NPP MPs, who are aware of the situation and disapprove of the control of the Jubilee House by the cousins of the President have communicated their concerns to the Presidency, but the President has brushed aside their concerns. Former national NPP officials have spoken against what they call the ‘intransigence of the President” on matters relating to the conduct of his two cousins, who are wittingly or unwittingly contributing to the erosion of political goodwill toward the Party.
“We had a great first term in office. The second term saw the retention of the core team that worked under Bawumia to achieve great economic success as we witnessed in the first term. In my view, ‘Akyem Mafia’ has turned governance into a friends and family money-making enterprise, with little regard to the concerns of the rank and file of the Party. They have no respect for Dr. Bawumia because they see the potential in him. They know that if given the chance in 2024, the Veep will perform better than their cousin the President, so their plan was to create insurmountable political obstacles to dim the shine on Bawumia and mess up his chances of leading NPP in the future”, a former elected national NPP officer blurted out his frustration.
The eighty or so NPP MPs who petitioned the President to sack his own cousin, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, and a Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, Adu Boahen, were on a mission to save the career of Dr. Bawumia and to increase the chances of the Party in winning national elections post-Akufo-Addo era. The revolting MPs who have warned to boycott the business of government unless their demands are met, are said to be plotting to eliminate the negative influence created by the presence of the ‘Akyem Mafia’. The cousins carry too much political garbage, and NPP cannot afford to allow them to be a drag on their forward march beyond the second term.
Less than 24 hours after the ruling NPP MPs demanded that one of his cousins, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, should be relieved of his appointment due to a conflict of interest, lack of confidence and trust, Otchere Darko, as usual, showed up on Twitter and this is what he wrote: ” You cannot but admire the New Patriotic Party. In the end, the focus of all parties concerned is that ultimately Ghana wins and that is where all minds should be and we believe will be”.
Otchere Darko did not address any of the substantive demands of the revolting NPP MPs but rather sought to rub salt into their wounds. Who are the ‘parties concerned? How does Ghana ‘wins’ when the ruling Party’s MPs threaten a boycott of their own government and country? How about acknowledging the obvious by using his platform to advise his cousin to resign, to save the country from a possible constitutional crisis?
The President, as visionary as he is, must not allow his legacy to be whittled away due to the hubris and interests of his cousins. ‘All minds’ cannot support a cause when some minds are excluded from the brainstorming session. Some reports have it that the Finance Minister has not spoken to the Vice President for almost a year, except for the occasional quiet encounters they had at a few Cabinet meetings.
One may ask; what is NPP willing to sacrifice in order to retain power in 2024? There appears to be a tactical political proxy war being waged against Vice President Bawumia, and the aim of the architects is to make the Vice President unpopular to prop up the Akan base of the Party who may be sympathetic to entertain the cousins should NPP retain political power in 2024.
The NPP appears ready to push the ‘self-destruct’ button. Are any elders in the house still?
