Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the vice president of Ghana, has offered a whopping £80K, which is about GHc 1,112,284.55 as a sponsorship package to the Women’s Wing of the United Kingdom branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP-UK).
The vice president is set to deliver the key note address at the International Women’s Conference of the NPP-UK Women’s Wing slated for 10th June, 2023 in London.
Support for female Patriots and their empowerment will always come with approbation. However, on account of the recent untold global hardship, which did not spare Ghana economic constraints, Dr Bawumia’s move is fallacious and in the words of V. L. Parrington “a political gesture to draw popular support.”
At a time Ghana is recovering from the ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s unbridled invasion of Ukraine, with months of negotiations to subscribe to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout, it does not make economic sense, neither does it give a justification for Ghana’s engagement with the IMF for the vice president to make such self-absorbed decisions.
Beyond the sponsorship, the vice president has reserved business class flight for 50 people, and rented luxurious 5-star hotel rooms at extortionate rates in London for his attendants and associates.
Damn well, the vice president is doing his own bidding at the expense of the New Patriotic Party and Ghanaians. Our fellow Patriots in the diaspora do acknowledge that women at home need more financial assistance and empowerment than they need abroad. But how many women groups aligned with the NPP has Vice President Bawumia personally financially or materially assisted during these periods of economic crises? This is, but bribing one’s way into power!
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia is fixated on leading the NPP whatever it takes. Ahead of the official opening of the flagbearership nominations of the NPP, he was in the news for the purchase and branding of 100 pick-up vehicles for his flagbearership campaign. The NPP will have less of such acts that kindle the aversion of Ghanaians to the Nana Addo-led NPP government with months to the electioneering seasons. His commitment to assisting his boss, the President, to successfully deliver on his mandate and promises to Ghanaians is now debatable.
In academia and the banking arena, Dr. Bawumia proved to be a polymath in economic management, and apparently embodied the panacea for Ghana’s economic challenges under clueless John Mahama and his bunch of inept economists. As a running mate, his public lectures on the mismanagement of the Ghanaian economy, incautious borrowing, the constantly depreciating Ghanaian cedi against majority global currencies, the unrestrained acts of corruption, amongst other distasteful practices and conducts of government appointees and officials of the erstwhile Mahama administration, made him the pride of our party. Even so, he has failed Ghanaians and the party that gave him exposure.
In government, and as the head of Ghana’s Economic Management Team, however, Dr. Bawumia’s inability to stabilise the cedi, decelerate inflation, control public expenditure, and restrict external borrowing, which are the repercussions of incompetent governance he accused President Mahama of, has made him the scourge of the New Patriotic Party as we prepare for elections 2024. His presence in government now creates air of dependency as he continues to demonstrate a lack of adherence to his core mandate, but rather millks government and state resources to cling onto power.
