Who is evading the 2024 presidential debate?: Digitalisation versus the economy

By Amos Safo

From today Monday, 18th November, it is left with 20 days to the crucial presidential and parliamentary elections. Ghana is among 64 other countries in the world that have held or are yet to hold their elections in 2024.

This represents a combined population of about 49% of the people in the world. The 2024 elections across the world have been described as the biggest in history.  With the election in the USA gone, global attention will be on Ghana, whose election takes place on December 7, 2024.

But it appears that the much-awaited presidential debate between ex-President John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) will never come on. Across the world presidential debates have offered the electorate the platform to make informed voting decisions.

Rationale for presidential debate

Dr. Bawumia has been calling for a presidential debate due to John Mahama’s persistent reference to the economy as a messy one. In response to Bawumia’s challenge for a presidential debate, John Mahama says he will not dignify the Vice President with a debate on the economy.

Ordinarily, if the economy is in a mess as Mr. Mahama claims, the debate would have given him the platform to prove his point and compel Dr. Bawumia to account for the current state of the economy. Instead, the ex-president continues to chide Dr, Bawumia for running away from the economy and diverting attention to digitalization.

Rather than accepting the challenge for a presidential debate, the ex-president has taken his debate to social media, where he has posed five questions to the vice president. The five questions are : (1) Why is the exchange rate 17 cedis to one dollar?

(2)Why has Ghana’s debts risen from 120 billion cedis to 767 billion cedis in eight years?

(3) Why has inflation risen to a high of 54 percent in eight years?

(4) Why has the government borrowed 42 billion cedis from the Bank of Ghana?

(5) Why is Dr. Bawumia running away from discussing the economy and now diverted attention to digitalization?  Mr. Mahama said though he could have asked more questions, he wanted Dr. Bawumia to answer only five questions. The five questions compare to the 17 questions Dr. Bawumia asked Mr. Mahama’s late vice president, Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur.

Bawumia’s response

Dr. Bawumia and his communications team have also used social media to reply to the ex-president. In fact, social media has become the most effective platform for political campaigns. Perhaps, the cumulative effective of social media in the 2024 elections could surpass newspapers, and even radio and television. This is because social media combines text, voice and video and has become alternative means of communications for both elites and ordinary people.

In a video on social media in response to John Mahama’s insults against the Vice President, Miracles Aboagye, the communications specialists of Dr. Bawumia’s campaign team said it was very low for the ex-president to resort to insulting the vice president, rather than concentrating on his campaign message, if any. “It is okay to disagree with the vice president, but it is wrong for the ex-president to use abusive words on the vice president”, he advised.

According to Miracles Aboagye, ex-president Mahama’s defence that the words he used were American expressions which are not insults is untenable. “Since when did America expressions become accepted communications in Ghana?”, he asked. “It is not every word in the USA that becomes courteous for us to use in Ghana”, Aboagye added.

On the five questions, Mr. Aboagye explained that the current economy under President Akufo-Addo and Dr. Bawumia  is better than what Mr. Mahama handed over in 2016. He argued that the terrible economy Mr. Mahama bequeathed to Ghana explains why fresh teachers, nurses and doctors could not be employed.

On the contrary, ”It is this same economy John Mahama describes as messy that is able to pay all public sector workers. It is this same messy economy that is able to buy fuel to generate electricity for the country for eight years. Aboagye argued that on the contrary, the so-called better economy of John Mahama presided over ‘dum sor’ for four years. Moreover, the “messy economy” is now paying the allowances of teacher and nursing trainees which the better economy of Mahama scrapped.

Furthermore, he reminded the ex-president that it was under this same economy John Mahama describes as messy that free secondary education was introduced and successfully implemented. Since 2017 free SHS has produced more than five million students, most of whom would have been denied access to secondary education. Moreover, Aboagye emphasized that the former president and his political party, NDC have given the clearest signal that they will cancel free SHS when given the opportunity.

“Even if they do not cancel it, they will introduce ‘mean testing’ to determine who pays and who does not pay. That will be the beginning of trouble for poor families in Ghana”, he said.  He explained that the free SHS intervention is the only policy that has opened equal opportunities for all Ghanaian children, irrespective of their background. “We are going to work together to ensure that no one will destroy free SHS”, he concluded.

Analysis of young lady

In another video on social media, a young lady who simply describes herself as ‘Kisu’ added her voice to ex-president Mahama’s assertion that, the current economy is in a mess because of the rapid depreciation of cedi against the dollar. The young lady referred to John Mahama’s supposed five questions as suggestions, rather than questions. She asked  the following questions:

• Why was the exchange rate one dollar to four cedis, but the John Mahama’s government could not provide common chalk for public schools?
• Why was the exchange rate one dollar to four cedis , but the John Mahama’s government failed to pay teacher and nursing trainee allowances?
• Why was there unemployed graduates association in Ghana when the dollar was four cedis?
• Why did the John Mahama government fail to fail to implement free SHS when the exchange was one dollar to four cedis?

The young lady argued that the prudent management of an economy does not necessarily depend on the exchange rate. According to her good economic policies can always override the effects of the exchange rate fluctuations. “Today, the cedi is one dollar to 17 cedis, but all public schools now use marker boards; meanwhile John Mahama’s government could not even provide common chalk when the dollar was four cedis. Today, the cedi is 17 cedis to a dollar, but the current government has restored nursing and teacher trainee allowances. In addition, free SHS has been implemented successfully in an era of rapid depreciation of the cedi”, she concluded.

Digitalisation and the economy

Dr. Bawumia himself has taken to social media to respond to John Mahama’s five questions. In a video, he wondered why in this era of the fourth industrial revolution, some people still do not understand the link between digitalization and the economy. “That is why these people often fail to appreciate the digital revolution”, he said in an apparent reference to John Mahama’s rhetoric that digitalization has nothing to do with the economy.

The vice President explained that the countries that fail to the harness the gains of the digital revolution will be left behind. ‘This is where the world is moving”, he emphasized.

Dr Bawumia explained that currently, digitalization drives economic growth, contrary to Mr. Mahama ‘s belief that the two are not linked. According to Dr. Bawumia, Uber, an applications company that promotes transportation has a net value of $163 billion, while Ghana’s total economy, including gold and cocoa, is $75 billion. Thus, Uber’s net value is twice that of Ghana.

Similarly, Microsoft which also builds computer applications and software is valued at $3 trillion, which is 40 times the value of Ghana’s economy. In addition, Apple another technology and digital company is worth $3.5 trillion, which translates to 46 times the economy of Ghana. This is because these companies are building applications and software that people are using.

Developing apps

“As we enter the fourth industrial revolution, you are going to be a developer of apps or a consumer. We have to make that choice if we want to empower our local economy to become a full participant in the digital economy.

We have to be developing some of these apps, not only users”, but the Vice President explained. His explanation is no doubt a direct response to ex-president John Mahama’s views that digitalization has no link with economic development. The ex-president, recently told the indigenous Ga people that all they require is kenkey and fish, not digitalization.

The Vice President mentioned the Ghana card, mobile money interoperability, the digital address system, epharmancy, citizen app and ghana.gov as some of the digital systems he was personally involved in developing. “I am proud to have played a part in laying the foundation of Ghana’s digitalization drive. We are going to ensure that Ghana is not left behind in this digital revolution, so we need to see more local empowerment in the digital space”, he concluded.

The post Who is evading the 2024 presidential debate?: Digitalisation versus the economy appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.

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