The cancer of disingenuity affecting this government

Whether you are a fanatic or casual observer of politics, you will have at least noticed a couple of irresolutions and contradictions in the activities of the government recently. Now, my challenge is that I am unable to tell whether the inconsistencies are deliberate hocus-pocus or the change is circumstances birthed them. Perhaps you can do a better job; be the judge and tell me at the end of this article what you think it is. 

 

E-levy

 

In 2021, the Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia explicitly stated that it was inappropriate to tax mobile money transactions because majority of “the people who do the transactions are very poor people.” And indeed that was true. But a couple of months later the statement was exposed for the political talk that it was. 

 

One of the major items of the 2022 budget was to tax Mobile Money transactions and other wired transfers. The proposal was greeted with public uproar. The government only proved that it meant business with the proposal and went on to implement it, however, without all the original bits to it. 

 

 

Intentional Monetary Fund.

 

In the heat of the arguments to make the case for why Ghanaians should accept the E-levy, the finance ministers and other government spokespersons categorically stated that the government was not going to seek help from the IMF. Anybody who did not know any better would have thought the IMF was a sinister institution that portends doom for countries. In the words of the Finance minister. “Ghana is a proud nation, we will not go to the IMF. The consequences are dire.” He even made biblical allusions to that effect. This one too barely survived two months before imploding. 

In the second quarter of 2022, the same finance minister who so much did not want to touch the IMF with a barge pole started to champion the government’s decision to make a one-eighty turn to the IMF. An act of subterfuge was used to make it come from the president, ostensibly to lesson the criticism. Well, it did so little to avert criticisms.

 

National Cathedral 

 

Another lightning rod for criticism that the government has been especially disingenuous about is the Ghana National Cathedral. The figures of the cost of the construction keep changing like the reading on a thermometer placed under the armpits of different people with varying temperatures. Till date it is evasive to tell the exact amount the government has spent and will spend on the project. First the government said the project was not even going to be funded by the government to begin with. Another tall story as it turned out.

Different sources cite different amounts of money it will cost the taxpayer to complete the project. In 2019, the finance minister pegged the project at $100 million. Secretary to the board of trustees, Victor Boateng estimated the cost at $200 million. Chairman of the Board of trustees Apostle Professor Opoku Onyina quoted the cost at $250 million. The Finance Minister again in June said it will cost $350 million meanwhile the lawyer for the construction firm quoted $400 million. I cannot quote all the of the variations.

Domestic Debt Exchange Programme ( No Haircuts)

 

The ambers of contention around the Debt Exchange Programme is still burning. With  Pensioners and bondholders jostling and clinging to their investments. At the introduction of the programme, the government unequivocally said there was not going be any “hair cut” to any individual bondholder as a result of the Debt restructuring plan. Which essentially meant individual bondholders would not be affected by the programme. 

 

Before one could say Jack Robinson, the same government is inviting bondholders to consent to the programme. In the face of all the resistance from several quarters, the government is pressing ahead with the programme. There is a nagging fear that the programme have a potential to rob people of the dignity of retirement. 

In the final analysis, this is a lethal cocktail of events that have the potential of eroding the vital trust between a people and their government. If the people’s disillusionment with the current government could be assuaged, these inconsistencies have erased all possibilities of attaining that.