Ghana: Petty Politics in Time of COVID-19 Between Govt, Opposition Disappointing

Depending on who you speak with, one would argue that the novel coronavirus pandemic struck Ghana at the worst, or at the best moment.

The political class thinks this is the time to take advantage of the situation to endear themselves to the electorate, given that Ghana is headed to the polls later in 2020.

Both the government and main opposition party National Democratic Congress (NDC) are engaging in back-and-forth comments exposing their desire to take advantage of a pandemic to win hearts. Ghana's Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia was criticized by members of the opposition NDC for comparing Ghana's power crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic. Former president John Mahama was in power during the "dumsor" period - four years of persistent, irregular, and unpredictable electric power outages.

Former deputy minister of communications and NDC member Felix Ofosu Kwakye said it was illogical for Bawumia to compare two unrelated crises.  "I have had occasion to say somewhere that what Bawumia did is akin to inviting me to take part in a beauty contest with a woman. It is illogical and with the greatest of respect to him, it does not make sense. A power crisis is not the same as a global health pandemic. For that reason, the responses to both are not the same," Kwakye said.

Some Ghanaians would side with Kwakye that the vice president flopped by not only comparing two totally unrelated situations, but by also engaging in trivial politics in the wake of a pandemic that has claimed over 430,000 lives globally.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) predicted that Ghana's economy is "set to suffer significantly", due to the "comparatively weak state of its national healthcare system (compared with those in developed countries)—including a shortage of capacity for screening, testing and quarantining suspected cases".

Import duties are expected to fall short of the target by GHS808 million, GDP growth rate may decline from 8 percent to 2.6 percent, while the overall fiscal deficit is projected to decrease from the programmed GHȼ18.9 billion to GHȼ30.2 billion, according to Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta. Apart from these projections, ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Ghana’s economic outlook to negative, setting a huge task for the government in order to ensure a resilient economy

So it comes as a surprise that Bawumia, who is also an economist, would engage in petty politics when there is an economy to save. One would think it obvious that the VP wouldn't have the luxury of time to reply to the former president if he was considering ways of maintaining a strong economy.

This article was written by Marian Efe Ansah. Photo: The Permanent Mission of Ghana to the United Nations