Being the best at whatever you do is mostly subjective to the whims and caprices of other people, but one can use hard core facts and evidence to make a claim as to why something or someone is the best at what he or she does. Mediaghananews.com is assessing the performance of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo’s tenure of office as the leader of the Republic of Ghana for the past three and half years and we are asking if he is the best Ghanaian President ever since the fourth republic.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo became the President of Ghana on 7th January 2017, after contesting for the third time. He won the Presidency on the back of myriads of promises at a time Ghanaian were almost fed up with then President John Dramani Mahama and his NDC. HE became the hope for the hopeless, an emblem of incorruptibility and his Free Senior High school campaign sloganeering was properly bought by the Ghanaian people. We are assessing the President’s performance on these thematic areas, Education, Digitization, Industrialization/Job creation, Infrastructure, The Economy and the Management of Covid 19.
EDUCATION
President Akufo Addo’s main campaign promise for his political party, the NPP was FREE EDUCATION. As a matter of fact Akufo Addo has been consistent with this promise since 2007 when he first tried his shot at the Presidency. His opponents almost always argued that Free SHS is impossible. President Akufo Addo rolled out his major campaign promise in the first year of his administrationbringing to an end the impossibility of the pessimists and naysayers. So far over 1.2 million Ghanaian children are beneficiaries of the FREE SHS policy. These children, in both our Senior High Schools and Technical -Vocational institutions access education without paying a dime all because of a single policy visionary vision of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo. Nurses and Teachers allowance which were abolished have also been restored which has gone a long way to lessen the burden of students and parents alike. Massive infrastructural development have started in all Senior High Schools to address the challenges of the Diouble Track Innovative System which has made it possible for 1.2 million people to be in School
DIGITIZATION
Ghanas Vice President, Dr Alhaji Mahamoud Bawumia has been at the center or succinctly put it, at the fore front of Ghana’s digitization agenda. So far he has supervised the digitization of many of government agencies which includes, Passport Office, DVLA office, Scholarship Secretariat, Ghana Post( National Property Addressing System, Ghana Post GPS App), Judiciary, all our Ports etc. So far, the National Identification has issued over 10million digital National Identificaion Cards wgich is also geared to a more digital economy. This particular act of digitization has been able to do away with a lot of bureaucracies and bottlenecks associated with government agencies and has led to proper efficiency at work.
INDUSTRIALIZATION/JOB CREATION/UNEMPLOYMENT
One of President Akufo Addo’s major campaign promise in 2016 was about industrialization which aimed at creating jobs and reducing unemployment to the barest minimum. The seriousness of Akufo Addo’s industrialization came into forth when he launched the manifesto promise and campaign slogan ‘One District One Factory’. They also actually titled their 2016 election manifesto book a s ‘CHANGE AN AGENDA FOR JOBS’. So far through the help of the private sector, about 123 factories are at various stages on completion among which about 79 companies are fully operational. President Akufo Addo has intitiated a temporary job opportunities for about a 100,000 Ghanaian graduates under the Nation Builders Corps popularly known us NABCO. Many Ghanaian nurses who have been in the house for about 5 years after completing nursing training have been fully employed, same applied to teachers. Hundreds of thousands of people have been employed under different sectors of government and private sector.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Infrastructure development was the main trump card for President Mahama and his NDC prior to the 2016 elections even though President Mahama has always claimed before becoming even the Vice President that any government that prides itself with infrastructural development is wallowing in an exercise in mediocrity because every government does some. The Ghanaian people still believes that that particular view of Mahama is true, suffice to as that is why he was voted out. Over the past three and half years, massive infrastructural development have been scattered all over Ghana. Hospitals,Schools, companies,roads, FIFA standard football pitches, affordable houses,fishing harbors,expansion of airports among many other things. This government has not out-rightly abandoned projects started by previous government as they have found ways and means to finish some of these projects.
ECONOMY
The NPP as the then opposition campaigned massively, rigorously and vigorously on the Ghanaian economy. The economic debate during the heat of the political campaign was spearheaded by Dr Mahamoud Bawumia. He was virtually always almost on a field day as no one from the opposition seem to be able to match his economic prowess as at then, not even the sitting Vice President who was a one time governor of the Bank of Ghana perhaps all the things he was churning out were through. Bawumia held series of economic lectures to expose the inefficiencies of the Mahama administration. He talked about,high inflation, exchange rate volatilities, high interest rates,high cost of living,unemployment,low growth rate,high budget deficit, almost collapsed banking system etc. He also promised that when they are voted into power they will take us out of the clutchy hands of the International Monetary Fund(IMF). Three years on and interest rates are on the decline, inflation is on the decline,growth rate is on the ascendancy, massive employment, low budget deficit, robust banking sector after the clean up and we are no more under the supervisory of the IMF. All these are a testament of the fact that Akufo Addo, Bawumia and their economic management team have performed better under all the major economic indicators.
MANAGEMENT OF COVID 19
Covid 19 has thrown the health and the economy of every single country into a ditch or abyss. It is evidently clear that there are a lot of lapses and loophole in the health service delivery of the world and Corona Virus has exposed us all. Every country has had to find its own unique way to suppress or mitigate the the effects of the disease on people and i must say President Akufo Addo roused to the occasion and continue to rise. His approach to mitigating the effects of the disease has been commendable and he has enjoyed massive praise locally and internationally. Together with the Ghana Health Service, they stepped out to find the disease even in asymptomatic stage to make sure that a lot of people are not infected and those who will be infected will be isolated and treated, he place a partial lock down on the country, provided health workers with the necessary PP E’s,gave health workers incentives,provided food for the vulnerable, provided capital assistance to companies that have been affected,provided free water and electricity to citizens of Ghana,encouraged personal hygiene and social distancing among all of and ad finally showed strong leadership.
With everything said above and the numerous ones which we couldnt capture, we at mediaghananews.com are asking if President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo can be classified as the best Ghanaian President since the inception of the fourth republic?
Source: mediaghananews.com
