The Member of Parliament for Cape Coast South, George Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, has said the Vice President’s shift of focus from the economy to digitalisation has only been beneficial to himself.
According to him, Bawumia’s concession of defeat less than 24 hours after the polls before the Electoral Commission’s official declaration, is the only success the Vice President has chalked from his digitalisation drive after moving away from the economy.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, who served as Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, was presented to Ghanaians as an ‘Economic Messiah’ with the prowess to turn Ghana’s economy around.
He gave several lectures on how Ghana could navigate its economic woes to become a stronger economy whilst in opposition.
However, after becoming Vice President in 2017, he was put in charge of the Economic Management Team of the administration but failed woefully, with Ghana’s economy recording worse indices compared to what they inherited.
The Vice President began a digitalisation drive where he shunned issues relating to the economy.
Following the governing party’s humiliating defeat in the just ended elections, the former Deputy Finance Minister, speaking in an interview with Onua News indicated that, the NPP lost the elections as a result of Bawumia’s candidacy.
He noted that his performance on the grounds was parallel to the theories he espoused whilst in opposition, describing him as “a theoretical economist.”
According to him, the Vice President’s diversion from the economy to digitalisation also did not yield fruits, describing his only success as his swiftness in conceding defeat before the Electoral Commission (EC) came out to announce the results.
“I knew he wouldn’t go anywhere with what he is doing. He has now become a digital man. One thing he has been very successful at as a digital man is to declare his own failure early. He declared his results that he has failed before Jean Mensa came [to announce] so, he has at least, saved himself with his digital,” he stated.
Mr. Ricketts-Hagan indicated further that although he knew Bawumia was not going to succeed, he neither wished him well because he knew he would fail with his theoretical and data explanations without the practical capacity.
“We know the efforts that goes in at that level but I did not wish him to succeed and I knew he would not succeed. Also, I knew he didn’t have the capacity to do the job. He talked good economics which we can all speak to but if Economics is all about data and presentation, then everyone who has studied economics will be a great economist. The practicality of it [is the real deal],” he stated.
