Government data is sacrosanct, or at least it was until 2017.
With the arrival of the Akufo-Addo government in the centre, this changed. From the very beginning, the Akufo-Addo government engaged in numbers jugglery to show that the Ghanaian economy is amongst the fastest growing economies. While economists and financial institutions around the world were sceptical about their data and the latest GDP numbers by the Government have left economists baffled.
More worrying questions are being raised about the veracity of other numbers by Honourable Isaac Adongo and other renowned economists in the country. While we experienced manufacturing growth according to government, the index for industrial production fell, how possible
The main push for this growth (they claim) has been consumer spending, but publicly available data has shown that consumer goods firms earnings were sluggish. The sale of cars, beverages etc all saw negligible growth. All anecdotal evidence has shown that jobs were lost and businesses were shutting down. Contrary to what government and its propagandists tell Ghanaians, growth of credit to businesses has also been at decadal lows, highlighting how why enterprises are not borrowing money.
This has been the hallmark of the Akufo Addo government, where all that they claim can never pass the crucible of a fact check. The President has now moved from making fake promises to spreading fake data.
Dr Bawumia, NPP propagandists and a largely pliant media were happily spreading the myth and told us that bad times were over.
The Government of President Akufo-Addo must understand one simple truth that: Never cover up the truth with lies.
After inflicting massive damage to the economy through bad policies and faulty implementation of its core policies, the government is now trotting out fake statistics to save its face. The economy is growing in a fictitious way. It is a growth that is driven by government just deploying oil revenue into the economy.
The structure of the economy as we have it now is disarticulated and government is deceiving us in a very interesting way by saying the leaped frog.
Under Mahama’s administration, Ghana became the number one destination in the sub region for foreign direct investment. This development and investments made in the oil and gas sectors by the erstwhile Mahama administration brought about predictions that Ghana will be the fastest-growing economy in West Africa and amongst the fastest-growing economies in the world by 2019. The World Bank and other respected institutions predicted that the Ghanaian economy will grow by 8 to 8.5 percent by 2018.
Everybody is looking for sustainable or inclusive growth- growth that improves the quality of life or all. If you’re not creating jobs, you are never going to have sustainable and inclusive growth. But before you can create jobs, you’re got to do new things, establish new hospitals, schools, ICT centres etc. The Akufo Addo government’s focus is on the next election.
The need for infrastructure vis-a-vis our economic development is huge, but progress has been very slow under the administration. The Mckinsey Global Institute has estimated that up to three billion people could join the global middle class by 2020. How will this affect the demand for infrastructure? That’s not the worry of the current administration. The growth of the middle class is creating another, higher set of expectations.
By: Andrews Krow
