It has been almost two weeks, since Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, New Patriotic Party (NPP)�s acclaimed god of Economics, was invited to a debate on the state of Ghana�s economy with the Bank of Ghana and the Ghana Statistical Service.
But, as a matter of surprise, the man who believes himself to be a better economist than the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, and Government Statistician, has only voted with his feet.
In addition to Dr. Bawumia not responding to the invitation to debate, he has also suddenly gone quite on the economy.
People�s Forum, the political pressure group which threw the invitation to Dr. Bawumia, has confirmed to The Enquirer newspaper that the economist has not responded to the invitation.
According to the Forum, not even turn-down from Dr. Bawumia�s end has reached the Forum in response.
On 3rd of September 2014, People�s Forum threw an open invitation to Dr. Bawumia to debate the Bank of Ghana and the Statistical Service on the true state of the economy.
The invitation by the Forum had come in reaction to claim that Dr. Bawumia that statistics churned out by the two state institutions had been cooked to whitewash the true state of the economy to Ghanaians and investors.
Promising to create an unbiased platform, People�s Forum had observed that Dr. Bawumia�s assertion were serious given the fact that he is a former Deputy Governor of the bank of Ghana.
�And so, it could be that he is only trying to alert all of us to some monkey business that the leadership of the BoG did when he was Deputy Governor, and is still doing now that he is out of office,� Clement Amole, one of the Conveners of the Forum, had reasoned at the press conference.
However, to the surprise and disappointment of everybody, Dr. Bawumia has since not responded to the invitation. Rather than taking up the challenge with the same gusto that he used to run down two public institutions, the NPP economist has rather gone out of coverage area.
Since the invitation on the 3rd of September, Dr. Bawumia�s foul mouthing of the economy and public institutions has stopped.
Yesterday, the People�s Forum said the cowardice showed by Dr. Bawumia in a clear indication to Ghanaians that the man cannot be taken seriously in anything he says on the economy.
It said the chicken courage showed by Dr. Bawumia also gives the BoG, GSS and the People�s Forum to call his bluff anytime he makes any highfaluting proclamations on the economy in future.
Meanwhile, recent happenings in the economy have created strong evidence that Dr. Bawumia and Pastor Mensah Otabil�s description of the Ghanaian economy as a sinking ship are urine.
The over subscription of the $1billion Eurobond that Government issued on the international market has come as a fat slap in the face of the alarmist statements that seem to have been chorused to scare away investors from the country.
The Eurobond issue was oversubscribed $2.9billion. In addition, COCOBOD has also successfully raised $1.7billion from the international market for the purchase of cocoa. The COCBOD facility was oversubscribed by 15%.
How a country�s economy could be a sinking ship and still have its international bonds massively oversubscribed is a mad-type logic that only Dr. Bawumia and his variety can explain.
Even more, to the direct indictment of Dr. Bawumia, who was Deputy BoG Governor when the erstwhile Kufuor regime took a 700 million euros Eurobond to pay salaries, Finance Minister, Seth Tekper, has said that $750million of the recent Eurobond will be invested in capital infrastructure.
Mr. Terkper has also said the remaining $250million will be used as seed capital for the Ghana Infrastructure Fund.
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