The US Vice President, Kamala Harris paid a state visit to Ghana from Monday 27th March 2023 to Thursday 30th March 2023. During the visit, she made a number of headline grabbing comments, which have been widely reported in both print and electronic media. The media seem to have glossed over the real import of her statement about appointing a NEW ECONOMIC ADVISOR for the government of Ghana. This is on the backdrop of having touted Ghana’s Vice President, Dr Alhaji Mahmud bawumia, as Ghana’s economic messiah, whose claim to fame in Ghanaian politics is his economic lectures as an opposition Vice Presidential candidate; and proffering solutions to Ghana’s economic challenges then, in addition to his role as a deputy governor of Ghana’s central bank from 2006 to 2009 as well as his appointment as the resident representative of the African development bank in Zimbabwe from 2011 to 2012. Per announcement of the US Veep in appointing a new economic advisor, she just stopped short of calling Alhaji Bawumia and Ken Ofori Atta, Ghana’s finance minister and to an extent the Governor of the Bank of Ghana incompetent and incapable of managing the banking and financial sector. The IMF Appointed Mr. Leonard Chumo (a Kenyan citizen in his 40s) as a Resident Advisor on Financial Supervision at Bank of Ghana. Mr. Chumo started his work since 6th February 2023.
On 27th March 2023, citinewsroomonline posted a story titled *USA to deploy resident advisor to help Ghana resolve its economic crisis.* In it they posted that
The United States of America has announced that its Department of Treasury’s Office of Technical Assistance (OTA) will deploy a full-time resident advisor to assist the Ministry of Finance to develop and execute medium-to-long-term reforms needed to improve debt sustainability and support a competitive, dynamic government debt market.
These two institutions have literally called out Ghana’s Vice President, Finance minister and the Governor of the bank of Ghana as incompetent, they rubbed it in further by adding that they will be sending 10 recently graduated young Ghanaians to help save our economy. Do we have the men? No pun intended.
Where is Ghana’s self acclaimed economic guru? While Ghana experiences economic meltdown. With livelihoods, incomes and investments withering by the day, and yet Ghana’s economic messiah sits as chairman of Ghana’s economic management team determining fiscal policies of the government.
President Akufo Addo and even as a presidential candidate reposed a lot of confidence in the ability of Alhaji Bawumia to deliver but unfortunately, once he became a sitting vice president, he seems more fixated on succeeding his boss as the next president of Ghana, and Ghanaians are poorer for it.
Can Ghanaian, industry players and foreign partners expect anything else from the Alhaji Mahmud Bawumia as Ghana’s President without the help of the bretton wood institutions and the associated conditionality?
Quite unnerving is the loud silent question, does the President Nana Addo, agree with the IMF and USA on their views about the competence level of his trio in charge of both the fiscal and monetary policies ? If yes, we eagerly await his next moves.
We the humble citizens of the common sense constituency, strongly expect the President to act and save Ghana from further humiliation.
