Vice presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the December elections, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has offered a derisive response to a request by President John Mahama for the disclosure of the cost of the 2007 redenomination of the cedi.

In a short comment on his Facebook wall, Dr. Bawumia said the request by the President is another demonstration of his cluelessness about economic issues.
“Today's request for disclosure on the 2007 redenomination is another demonstration of incompetence.

Apart from the fact that the then Governor disclosed the cost as far back as 2007, if the President really wanted to find out the cost of the redenomination, he could simply have asked his VEEP who was Bank of Ghana Governor, especially when the President was Head of the Economic Management Team between 2009 and 2012,” Dr. Bawumia stated.

During a tour of the capital as part of is the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) campaign for the upcoming elections, President Mahama dared Dr. Bawumia to come clear on the cost of the redenomination exercise undertaken when he (Bawumia) was Deputy Governor of the central bank.
The President’s request follows Dr. Bawumia’s unrelenting criticism of the Mahama-led government as incompetent.

President Mahama had remarked that Nana Akufo-Addo’s running mate had no moral authority to tag his administration as incompetent because under the watch the NPP government in 2007, the country recorded the highest deficit of 19 percent.
The President said he deserved praise for bringing the deficit down to 5.3 percent, not Bawumia’s criticisms.

“Up till today, no Ghanaian knows the cost of the redenomination exercise and the same people come and say someone is incompetent. When you redenominated the cedi how much did it cost us? Simple things like these you cannot tell us and you have the nerve to come and talk about corruption. Look in the mirror and look at yourselves,” the President had remarked.

However, reacting to the President claims, Dr. Bawumia said the President was being deceptive.

“Such petty propaganda should be beneath someone of the stature of a President. It is clear he is very poorly briefed, but when a President decides to join the bandwagon of propaganda, he only ends up embarrassing himself,” Dr. Bawumia countered.

The Bank of Ghana in 2007 redenominated the cedi by setting 10,000 cedis to one the new Ghana Cedi (GH¢), a move that was aimed at strengthening the local currency.

However, some Economists and government spokespersons have attributed the country’s current economic challenges to the 2007 redenomination that was sanctioned by the John Kufuor administration.

They say the politically motivated redenomination exercise was a scheme by the Kufuor administration to steal from country’s coffers.
Most of the critics of the redenomination also say, instead of the knocking off four zeros from the old cedi to create an illusion of a robust local currency, the fundamentals of the economy at the time should have been firmed up.
Published below is Bawumia’s three paragraph response to President Mahama.

Mr. President, care to read?

Today's request for disclosure on the 2007 redenomination is another demonstration of incompetence. Apart from the fact that the then Governor disclosed the cost as far back as 2007, if the President really wanted to find out the cost of the redenomination, he could simply have asked his VEEP who was Bank of Ghana Governor, especially when the President was Head of the Economic Management Team between 2009 and 2012.

Such petty propaganda should be beneath someone of the stature of a President. It is clear he is very poorly briefed, but when a President decides to join the bandwagon of propaganda , he only ends up embarrassing himself.
Moving on, can the President (with the same zeal) and his Economic Management Team respond to the 170 statements contained in my last lecture?

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