It was an amazing twist of the facts in our history when Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufour, an NPP Presidential aspirant at an NPP students’ forum at Cape Coast described former President Rawlings as visionless, who was incapable of developing Ghana during his 19 years leadership.
In as much as one expects Dr. Addo-Kufour to hinge his bid to lead the NPP on some concrete message that can resonate with the NPP delegates to Congress, little did one expect such will result in distortions and denial of solid historical facts.
Perhaps it is necessary to remind the medical doctor of some fine lines in Ghanaian history as captured by the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana’s 2005 report titled “Globalization, Employment and Poverty Reduction”: A Case Study of Ghana”.
According to the ISSER document, the period 1970-1983 witnessed economic turbulence which was captured by the fluctuating real GDP growth and real per capita GDP growth rate. The document described the period as one of economic decay and attributed it largely to counter productive policies pursued. So bad was the situation that, between the period of 1970-1983, real GDP grew at an average rate of 0.81% per annum while the growth of real per capita GDP on average was -8.34% (ISSER, 2005).
According to the ISSER document, in 1983, the already precarious economic situation was worsened by prolonged drought with its attendant bush fires and the deportation of a million Ghanaians from Nigeria; the deportees represented a tenth of the Ghanaian population at the time. It was at such point of suffocation and stagnation from which Ghana was resuscitated with Rawlings as the captain in the coxswain.
Again under his leadership, Ghana’s agricultural policy of 1994 -2000 resulted in the recognition of Ghana’s Food Production Index of 148% for 1995-1997 as third achievement in the World Bank record after Jordan (157%) and China (156%). This is captured in the World Bank’s “Development Report 1999-2000”. So sterling were his economic achievements that at varied international fora, he was acclaimed as ‘one of few African leaders to resuscitate a collapsed economy’. Are those marks of a visionless leader?
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