"Ghana\u2019s Outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo Failed To Live Up To Expectations \u2013 A Look At His Time In Office"

" Ghana\u2019s Outgoing President Nana\u00a0Akufo-Addo\u00a0Failed To Live Up To Expectations \u2013 A Look At His Time In\u00a0Office \r\n\r\n Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo \u00a0will end the year without Ghana\u2019s presidency weighing on his shoulders. Akufo-Addo has served two terms as president and will be retiring from a long political life.\r\n\r\nAkufo-Addo became\u00a0 president in 2017 \u00a0with a pedigree in both modern and traditional statecraft. Three of his relatives \u2013\u00a0 Edward Akufo-Addo \u00a0(his father),\u00a0 J.B. Danquah \u00a0and\u00a0 William Ofori-Atta \u00a0\u2013 were among the architects of Ghana\u2019s first political party, the\u00a0 United Gold Coast Convention .\r\n\r\nAs a university student in the early 1960s, Akufo-Addo was known as a\u00a0 Trotskyite . But he eventually turned fully to his liberal political roots and affiliations. In the 1970s he aligned with opposition forces against then military leader\u00a0 Ignatius Kutu Acheampong . Akufo-Addo\u2019s campaign to return Ghana to civilian led democratic constitutional rule continued in the 1980s against the dictatorship of Jerry Rawlings.\r\n\r\nWhen Ghana returned to constitutional rule in the early 1990s, Akufo-Addo was one of those who formed the\u00a0 Danquah-Busia Club , a group started by 12 people who believed in the ideals of J.B Danquah. This later became a political party, the\u00a0 New Patriotic Party . It is one of the two parties that have governed Ghana since 1993 and produced two of the five presidents under the Fourth Republic. The New Patriotic Party is considered right wing.\r\n\r\nAs a\u00a0 scholar of political science , I have followed Akufo-Addo\u2019s presidency with keen interest. He was expected to do more than his predecessors, and have a strongly positive economic and social impact on Ghana. But viewing his record, I argue that his presidency failed to live up to expectation.\r\n\r\n The first-term high \r\n\r\nAkufo-Addo\u2019s victory in 2016 came after two previous attempts, in 2008 and 2012, had ended in close losses to the National Democratic Congress.\r\n\r\nHe got off to a shaky start as president. His\u00a0 inaugural address plagiarised \u00a0a speech by former American president George W. Bush. This was roundly condemned by Ghanaians, considering the presidential campaign had made a new era of competence one of its core messages.\r\n\r\nUndeterred, his presidency seemed to get on with the job of steering Ghana to its long expected rapid economic transformation. On both the international and domestic fronts bold initiatives were announced and pursued.\r\n\r\n\u201c Ghana Beyond Aid \u201d was made the central logic of the country\u2019s interactions with its bilateral and multilateral partners at the international level. The idea was to transform Ghana\u2019s economy from one of raw material production and exports to one based on manufacturing and high value services. Akufo-Addo promoted this idea vigorously, which enhanced Ghana\u2019s international standing. One sign of its success was Ghana ending International Monetary Fund\u00a0 support in 2019 . The success of the exit was mixed as Ghana\u2019s economy was devastated by the\u00a0 COVID-19 pandemic \u00a0in 2020.\r\n\r\nOn the domestic front, the Akufo-Addo presidency\u00a0 abolished fees \u00a0at the senior secondary school level, allowing unprecedented numbers of young people to enrol. In the first six years of the policy, an\u00a0 average of 422,940 students were enrolled annually compared to an average of 260,490 annual enrolments for the last six years before the policy.\r\n\r\nEconomic concerns included employment \u00a0for Ghana\u2019s young people and the stability of the financial sector. His presidency tried to deal with these matters through policies such as\u00a0 1District 1Factory , an industrialisation plan to promote manufacturing and create jobs.\r\n\r\nHe also initiated a banking sector clean-up , made necessary by bad business practices and the weak capital positions of many banks. This was controversial because some financial institutions were closed and people were laid off. But it stabilised Ghana\u2019s financial sector.\r\n\r\n The second-term low \r\n\r\nBy the second term, the great hope surrounding Akufo-Addo seemed to be draining off. The COVID-19 pandemic reached Ghana in March 2020 \u2013 also an election year.\r\n\r\nAkufo-Addo rose to the pandemic challenge by personally leading the\u00a0 policy responses . There were measures to deal with public health and to mitigate socio-economic impacts. Ghanaians were kept informed by regular television and radio addresses to the nation. But Akufo-Addo was caught wrong footed in critical areas such as vaccine production capacity and the dearth of health facilities.\r\n\r\nThe COVID-19 response also resulted in charges of\u00a0 nepotism \u00a0and\u00a0 corruption .\r\n\r\nGhana went to the polls in December 2020. The\u00a0 results \u00a0were devastating for the Akufo-Addo government. Its parliamentary majority was wiped out and a\u00a0 hung parliament \u00a0was sworn in.\r\n\r\nMatters were not helped when the Ghanaian economy plunged into its\u00a0 worst crises \u00a0in a generation in 2022. Inflation reached\u00a0 54.1% \u00a0and debt default forced Ghana to\u00a0 return \u00a0to the International Monetary Fund.\r\n\r\nThe government also instituted a\u00a0 domestic debt exchange \u00a0programme with citizens who had invested in bonds. This was seen as harsh;\u00a0 pensioners picketed \u00a0at the country\u2019s finance ministry to salvage what was left of their lifelong earnings and savings.\r\n\r\nThe destructive impact \u00a0of illegal mining on the environment across Ghana, and the abandoned site for the construction of a\u00a0 national cathedral \u00a0in Accra, arguably provide some of the most sobering images of the presidential term\u2019s disappointing outcomes.\r\n\r\nIn a sense the Akufo-Addo presidency became a victim of the high hopes it inspired. Or, worse, didn\u2019t have the people to fulfil them."

"Ghana\u2019s Outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo Failed To Live Up To Expectations \u2013 A Look At His Time In Office"

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