When you have a comedian as veep, the nation struggles - Akamba jabs Bawumia

National Organizer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Joshua Hamidu Akamba has described Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as a comedian.

The politician believes the renowned economist is not apt for the job as vice president and his "incompetence” is making Ghana struggle.

In an interview on Frontline on Rainbow Radio 87.Fm, Mr. Akamba said "when you have a comedian as a vice president, everything would be stagnant. Bawumia is a comedian and not a vice president”.

According to him, the vice president keeps peddling lies about the economy despite being a Muslim.

He was reacting to Dr. Bawumia’s response to former President Mahama’s description of Ghana’s economy as poor under the current administration.

The vice president in his reaction slammed Mr. Mahama asking him to speak to the data and stop embarrassing himself.

“This time in the life of our country is not the time for politics. We are facing a global pandemic and the focus of the President as we have all seen, has been leading and making sure the right things are done to protect the lives of Ghanaians. This has been the focus of the President and generally, the focus of the government,” Dr. Bawumia told journalists after a COVID-19 meeting at the Jubilee House on Monday.



“That notwithstanding, we have seen that the former President John Mahama has been making a number of statements and many of these statements have been proven not to be true or when you look at the data, they are not true,” Dr. Bawumia said, adding that the former President Mahama and the NDC should not delude themselves into believing that Ghanaians have soon forgotten how they mismanaged the economy when they were in power for eight years.

“I will like us to all recall that the NDC was in government for eight years. They may think that we have short memories but we can still remember very clearly that after eight years that they had in government demonstrating their prowess in managing this country and the economy, what did they leave us with?”

“They left us with declining agriculture, declining industry, interest rates were high, inflations were high. In fact if you look at the data in terms of macro-economic performance, in any economy since the year 2000, the tenure of the former President was the worst in terms of outcomes in macro-economic performance.”

“That’s the data; it is not me saying it. The banking system was weak, unemployment was rising, our national health insurance was back to cash and carry. We had four years of dumsor with its devastating impact on our economy. And notwithstanding that, electricity prices were being increased by an average of 45% between 2010 and 2015. Our public finances were in a precarious state of course, that resulted in us having to go to the IMF for a bailout and policy credibility. Prices were being increased and there was a freeze on public sector recruitment. Cuts in allowances for lecturers, abolishing of nursing and teacher training allowances and even for teachers who had worked for two, three years, they were being paid for just three months of allowance. Common chalk was even a problem in our schools,” Dr. Bawumia said.

But reacting to the vice president, Mr. Akamba slammed him saying he has no competence and integrity to criticise Mr. Mahama.

The NDC officer said Dr. Bawumia is Ghana’s worst performing second gentleman because he cannot compare his performance to that of late Aliu Mahama, late Prof. Mills and Mr. Mahama who served as vice presidents of this country.

"We don’t have a proper vice president. The one we have is a comedian, a joker and not competent. He is the reason why we are struggling,” he added.