Audio Attachment:Listen to Kwesi Pratt Jnr. |
Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., has posited that the "State of the Economy" lecture delivered by Vice Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is comparable to the many comments passed by serial callers of the party on radio.
According to him, the NPP has done a great disservice to their running mate by offering him such a platform, since it has �ended up portraying him (Bawumia) as somebody without new ideas and who at best is at the level of the NPP serial callers.�
The NPP Vice-Presidential candidate, at the 5th Ferdinard Ayim Memorial Lectures in Accra, outlined the various economic opportunities which according to him, have placed the current administration in favourable stead to improve the conditions of the ordinary Ghanaian.
The Economist guru, among other issues, argued that although inflation could be a measurement issue, the established relationships between inflation and key economic variables appeared to have gone missing for now.
Taking the packed auditorium filled with members of civil society, supporters of the NPP, media practitioners and various other observers through a concise analysis of the Ghanaian economy, Dr. Bawumia took his time to deflate the much touted single digit inflation talk of the ruling National Democratic Congress.
He pointed out that while inflation was said to be in single digits, it had no correlation to the cost of commodities in the markets, general cost of living, the interest rates and also the exchange rates of the Ghana cedi.
Dr. Bawumia mentioned the prices of basic commodities such as Gari, Maize, Pure Water, Cement as well as prices of fuel products and tariffs of water and electricity, school fees, road tolls etc. which had all seen triple digit increases and quizzed why the much talked about single digit inflation was not reflecting on the ground.
But speaking as a panelist on Radio Gold�s Ahaji and Alhaji programme, Kwesi Pratt felt Dr. Bawumia could have done better than reiterating what the numerous serial callers have been bandying about.
To him, Dr. Bawumia�s lecture on the economy brought nothing new and feels saddened that such a fine �gentleman� has �found himself reduced to this level�.
�Whoever thought of the enterprise of putting Dr. Bawumia behind the microphone to deliver a public lecture which will shore up his image has done Dr Bawumia an irreparable damage. This is because, this lecture has ended up portraying Dr. Bawumia as somebody without new ideas and who at best is at the level of the NPP serial callers. Dr. Bawumia�s address did not bring out anything new. All that he did was to repeat what the serial callers of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have been saying for the past three and half years�.the serial callers often say: inflation has gone down, but it is not reflecting in our pockets, they say inflation has gone down but if you look at the market prices are rising, nothing has happened in the economic realm worthy of applause and indeed you can sum up Dr. Bawumia�s address as exactly what the NPP serial callers have been saying� I feel sad that a gentleman like Dr. Bawumia found himself reduced to this level�� Kwesi Pratt said.
Source: Rebecca Addo-Tetteh/Peacefmonline
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