The New Patriotic Party’s running mate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has rejected claims by President John Dramani Mahama that the 2012 Election Petition which lasted for eight months, affected his economic performance.
President Mahama has on several occasions, noted that he has transformed the nation to an appreciable level, but would have done even better but for the obstruction of the for the election petition case.
The NPP challenged the results of the 2012 election at the Supreme Court, alleging the results were rigged to favour John Dramani Mahama.
“When I took over in 2013, our friends took us to the court over the 2012 election. Almost the entire first year was wasted. We were uncertain about the outcome so it stalled the development of the country. They were there counting pink sheets, we counted pink sheets for almost a year. Despite that, we were able to undertake a lot of projects. This means we could have done more.”
But addressing a lecture on the state of the economy in Accra on Thursday, on the theme, ‘The State of the Ghanaian Economy – A Foundation of Concrete or Straw’, Dr. Bawumia noted that the year 2013, of the election petition case, was Mahama’s best in terms of economic performance since he assumed office.
“President Mahama since he was sworn into office after the 2012 election, 2013, the year of the election petition, represents his best economic performance,” he added. Dr. Bawumia backed his claim with available data on the economy, saying they contradict President Mahama’s claims.
“The table on the screen shows that contrary to the claims by the president, except for the fiscal deficit, on virtually every single indicator such as GDP growth, inflation, exchange rates, exports, Eurobond interest rates, debt to GDP ratio, and so on, the performance of the economy in 2013 was better than 2014 and 2015. The president’s argument, therefore, does not hold water and therefore the election petition cannot be blamed. The Mahama government had the best Eurobond rate of 7.875 percent in 2013, and that shows that investors in the international community had relatively more confidence in the Ghanaian economy in 2013 than in the years after.”
“How the 2013 petition is the cause of the failure of the government is as explainable as the dwarfs in causing exchange rate depreciation. What is more interesting is that, at the time of the election petition hearing, the president told the country that the petition had no effect on his work,” he added.
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