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HAS PRESIDENT
MAHAMA BEEN SMART IN ENDING ‘DUMSOR’?
President Mahama last Friday, May 1st 2015,
said that “smart” businesses were not laying
off workers, but were rather investing to
improve production capacity.
He further stated that those companies were
investing because they had faith in the
ability of the government to end the power
crisis and improve the country’s electricity
generation capacity. The President was
simply saying that, Ghanaian businesses
which were downsizing and laying off workers
in these trying times of ‘dumsor’ were
simply not been smart, and had no faith in
the government!
The NPP regrets that these sentiments of the
President betray a deep lack of sensitivity
and sympathy for Ghanaian businesses and
companies in these trying times.
It also betrays a deep misunderstanding and
lack of appreciation on the President’s part
for the terrible difficulties Ghanaians
businesses face from the twin evils of
dumsor, and rapid cedi depreciation and
unstable macro- economy.
Dumsor has been in effect a full three years
(since June 2012) during which period the
cedi has seen the worst depreciation (since
2001), becoming by mid-2014, the worst
depreciated currency in Africa and the
world, according to international
commentators.
Under these difficult conditions, it is a
near miracle that businesses in Ghana have
survived at all. The plight of Ghanaians
engaged in small scale artisanal businesses
such as hairdressers, tailors, seamstresses,
vulcanizers, auto sprayers, barbers, corn
mill operators, cold store operators, is
terrible.
Even bigger companies and businesses, many
of them multinationals, have come under
enormous stress.
These reputable companies and businesses,
including Coca cola ltd, Newmont ltd, Tullow
ltd, Blue Skies ltd, etc, have had to lay
off or planning to lay off thousands of
Ghanaian casual and permanent workers, all
in an effort to survive in this climate of
dumsor.
The least these companies expect is for the
President to live up to his own several
assurances on ending dumsor and stabilizing
the cedi.
It is cruel , insensitive treatment of
Ghanaian companies for their own President
to run them down and deride them by
intimating that these companies and
businesses are not “smart” and do not
believe in the government’s ability to end ‘dumsor’.
The President, right from 2012 up to May Day
2015, has described ‘dumsor’ as a
“temporary” situation. A “temporary”
situation that has persisted continuously
for three (3) years.
The NPP urges President Mahama to be alive
to his responsibilities and repeated
assurances to end dumsor, stabilize the
cedi, reduce interest rates and stabilize
the macro-economic environment. He should
refrain from pointing fingers at hard
pressed Ghanaian businesses and companies at
this very trying period.
We urge the President to ask himself if he
has been smart in resolving ‘dumsor’,
resolving the cedi’s rapid depreciation over
the last 3years, resolving high interest
rate and resolving the unstable
macro-economic environment.
…signed…
Nana Akomea
(Director of Communications)
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