As Ghana heads into another election year, Former UN Special Advisor on Governance and CEO of the Kufuor Foundation, Prof. Baffuor Agyeman Duah is advising Ghanaians against entertaining lofty promises by politicians.
Prof. Agyeman Duah noted that political parties and their leaders have in previous elections raised the hopes of Ghanaians high with mouth-watering promises but failed to fulfil them after getting elected.
This, he said, is deception and should not be tolerated anymore especially in the current circumstances when the country is in crisis.
“At this point, everybody knows the exchequer, how much we have as a country. We are broke. So if you come to stand before me to say I’m going to pave this road, I’m going to give you that, I’m going give this free food, free that, we should hoot at such people because we will know that they are lying to us as they have done in the past and this goes for both parties,” he said in interview on JoyNews.
He also wants politicians to be measured in their campaign promises.
“I hope that the coming campaign seasons, our politicians will lower the bar. Not lower the bar in terms of quality of governance or leadership but in terms of the promises that they know too well that they cannot meet”.
Prof. Agyeman Duah said this while expressing his disappointment in the Akufo-Addo government.
According to him, the governing New Patriotic Party, while in opposition, proposed excellent policies that, if implemented, would have seen the country significantly transform.
He stated that he was particularly enthused about the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ mantra by the party and its leader, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
But after steering the affairs of the country for 6 years, Prof. Duah said they have failed at all fronts of governance and eroded the little success the country had attained.
“I think in the area of governance generally (they have failed. Of course, the economic management is a concern, how they managed the economy, how they over borrowed to take us back to the IMF for the 17th time especially given their own rhetoric prior to coming to power”.
The governance expert described the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ agenda as fiasco as he argued that the country cannot be said to be independent or self-sufficient when it is under the supervision of the International Monetary Fund.
