The former Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Prof Stephen Adei, has said “Ghana has become like a poor man who goes to the farm donning a piece of kente cloth” in reference to President Nana Akufo-Addo’s trips abroad, via private jets.
“To be honest with you, I don’t want to talk about the president’s use of luxurious private jets, because I don’t have all the facts except what you, journalists and politicians, have been putting out in the public domain but, as an economist, I don’t want to venture into it”.
The latest of such trips to the US and the UK, according to North Tongu MP, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, cost the taxpayer GHS3.5 million and over US$500,000, have gone to the European company which owns and runs the jet with queen size bedroom, movie theatre, sitting area, dining room and bathroom, since Mr Akufo-Addo, started using it.
In local currency, since May 2021, Mr Ablakwa said, such trips have cost the nation GHS 28 million, while Ghana’s jet sits idle and in some instance given out to President’s in the sub-region namely; Liberia’s George Weah, President Umaro Mokhtar Sissoco Embaló of Guinea-Bissau among others in the name of diplomatic relations.
Asked on Accra100.5FM’s morning show Ghana Yensom about what he makes of the president’s trips by private jets to the neglect of the country’s presidential jet, the former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) initially attempted shying away from the subject.
But later Prof Adei noted: “If I make a comment and it later turns out that the facts you have put out there as a journalist are not true, then I’ll be caught in a tight corner, so, permit me to talk about things that I can vouch for”, he pleaded with the host.
Pressed further about what comments he could vouch for, Prof Adei said: “We are a poor country and, so, whether it is Mahama or Akufo-Addo, it is not about flying around in a presidential jet because when you go to countries like Australia and other developed countries, their prime minister, for instance, uses a commercial flight; he doesn’t move with a huge entourage made up of 40 people and, so, I believe we have become like a poor man who goes to the farm bedecked in a kente cloth”.
“It is not just this government”, he caveated, adding: “It is something I’ve said over and over again”.
“If you’re poor and you wear a piece of kente cloth to the farm, it is not a good thing”, Prof Adei stressed, pointing out, “That’s all I can say”.
“Our size and the way we govern is too expensive”.
“It is not just the Akufo-Addo government; it’s been like that since time immemorial”.
“If we don’t stop, it won’t be well with us”, he warned.
On corruption, Economist Stephen Adei, has said there is “too much” of it under the Akufo-Addo administration, but contrasted that the situation was worse under the Mahama administration.
“The statistics, the evidence from Transparency International show that corruption has gone up too much”, he told Kwame Obeng Sarkodie on Accra100.5FM’s morning show Ghana Yensom on Thursday, 7 April 2022.
“Per their corruption perception index, we are currently hovering around 41, 42 per cent”.
“It is too much”, he said while mimicking the typical Nigerian accent, but quickly added, “It was worse under Mahama”.
In his view, “it has improved a bit under Akufo-Addo but I don’t think it has improved enough to make Ghanaians feel comfortable”.
“So, if they don’t intensify the fight against corruption, we’ll not get anywhere with it”, Prof Adei noted.
Last year, President Nana Akufo-Addo’s office described as “thoughtless loose” talk, a similar claim by Prof Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, the co-founder and Executive Director of the Afrobarometer Network, who said his [the President’s] anti-corruption credibility was in “tatters” and, indeed, “has been in tatters for a while”.
Condemning the President’s forceful retirement of Auditor-General Daniel Yaw Domelevo, Prof Gyimah-Boadi said in an interview at the time: “I see Domelevo as a victim of well-orchestrated actions by individuals who are officials and by state institutions”.
As far as he was concerned, “Mr Domelevo was exercising proper constitutional and legal oversight and officials and institutions that Mr Domelevo has sought to hold to account”.
“The man was doing his best to protect the public purse to claim surcharges for improperly spent public funds. One who is trying to fight corruption is one who is being persecuted and hounded out of office,” he noted.
In a response to the anti-corruption CSOs on the Domelevo issue, however, the President, said he found it “very disappointing to hear a very senior and otherwise distinguished member of civil society make such loose and thoughtless statements like the President’s credibility on anti-corruption is in ‘tatters’ and ‘has been in tatters for a while’ and that the compulsory retirement of Mr Domelevo puts the nail in the coffin of the President’s credibility”.
“Such statements are not based on facts and driven likely by emotions”, the Presidency said, adding: “The fact is that the President’s credibility on anti-corruption is unmatched and no amount of misconceived opinions can change that”, the letter signed by the President’s Executive Secretary, Nana Asante Bediatuo, said.
In the view of the Presidency, the silence of the CSOs on Mr Domelevo’s “unacceptable and unconscionable conduct” in office left much to be desired.
“It is noteworthy that no sound of caution or condemnation was heard from you or your colleagues in civil society when Mr Domelevo was using his office to engage in such unacceptable and unconscionable conduct. Indeed, a less charitable perspective would be that this was a patent abuse of office. Yet, there was no chatter from our friends of Civil Society,” the statement added.
According to the President, “never had he held the view that the work of Mr Domelevo was embarrassing his government”.
Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia is one of the best economists ever, fellow economist Prof Stephen Adei has said.
“As an economist, honestly he [Dr Bawumia] is one of the best but as a politician, and typical of politicians, he spoke against the government while in opposition but when they came into power then the reality hit them in the face and I believe that is how all opposition politicians are”, Prof Adei told Kwame Obeng Sarkodie on Accra100.5FM’s morning show Ghana Yensom on Thursday, April 7, 2022, ahead of Dr Bawumia’s lecture on the economy that same day.
In his view, Dr Bawumia is now facing the real heat after having come into power.
“So, yes, the reality has now hit him in the face and secondly the assumptions have changed because there was no COVID and a Ukrainian war while he was in opposition”.
“So, real economics is different from politics”, Prof Adei said.
During his lecture later on the same day, Dr Bawumia, said Ghana’s huge debt stock can be blamed on the financial cleanup exercise that resulted in the collapse of some nine local banks, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.
