'Botchweynomics'
It started with the Kutu Acheampong coup d'etat of 1972 which toppled the Busia government and used as its main excuse, the devaluation of the cedi. This excuse struck a very responsive chord among many people and the progressives' especially saw it as a big blow for their cause. Ghana did not need outside help or guidance in the management of her economy. Devaluation and/or any International Monetary Fund inspired economic measure or even any programme based on an IMF model was supposed to be a betrayal of the very sovereignty of Ghana.
Having come to power by proclaiming devaluation as evil, it was no surprise that Kutu Acheampong resisted to the very end any temptation to adjust the currency, even when it became obvious that the cedi was grossly overvalued.
By the time of the Limann administration it was a crime even to think about devaluation and talking with the IMF was a dreaded subject. People like Dr Kwesi Botchwey, the present Secretary for Finance and Economic Planning, from their exalted positions of university lecturers led the campaign against any possible rationalisation of the distortions in the economy.
When Flight-Lieutenant Rawlings seized power, bolstered by the brave words of Kwesi Botchwey and others, he was able to justify his seizure of power to Ghanaians by holding out the dreaded spectre of devaluation as justification of his coup. "Limann was about to mortgage the country to the IMF", the Flight-Lieutenant was telling cheering crowds some two months after the coup.
Fifteen months later and without any consultation or explanation to the citizens, the PNDC government introduced an IMF package Economic Recovery Programme which had as its main plank, the devaluation of the cedi. Recently as the three-year period of the Recovery Programme came to an end both Fit-Lt. Rawlings and Dr Kwesi Botchwey have been making highly exaggerated claims for its success. It is said that new converts always tend to be extraordinarily zealous and that possibly explains why Dr Botchwey has now become the most enthusiastic apostle for IMF induced measures. The recent massive devaluation of the cedi, however, gives the lie to the claims that the regime has been making.
Even if these claims were genuine, and that is very much in doubt, it is surprising what four years in office has done to Fit-Lt. Rawlings. These days he appears to put greater store on statistics and experts' reports than on the reality of everyday life. He used to be a great one for showing up official jargon and humbug for what it was, now he would rather listen to what official reports say than the suffering of the people.
When claims of improvement are made, one has always to to be sceptical, especially when the official reports bear no relationship to the reality on the ground as we have always pointed out, the PNDC has never stated what yardstick they were using to measure the improvement.
From the press conference that Dr Botchwey held in Accra recently, excerpts from which are printed elsewhere in this magazine, a most alarming picture emerges. Dr Botchwey appears to be using 1983 as his base year and it is on that that he claims the much vaunted improvement.
As he himself stated, that was the time of the famine, the time of the "Rawlings chain" it was the time that Ghana went begging for grain around the world and when people rioted and paid bribes for the benefit of riding in cattle trucks, And this was a state of affairs brought about by the policies of Dr Botchwey. That tragic period was the result of the implementation of the very policies that Dr Botchwey had been advocating for years from his lecture halls in the University of Ghana; the very ideas that he and others like him had convinced Fit-Lt. Rawlings would solve all Ghana's problems.
It is possibly a measure of the bravery of Dr Botchwey that when he saw the devastation wreaked by his ideas and their implementations he was man enough to swallow his former posturings and go back to the IMF and to outside financing. But to then turn round and claim an improvement or that his ERP had succeeded because the situation in the country today is better than the 1983 situation is the height of hypocrisy and dishonesty.
The least they can do is to use 1981 as their yardstick and that was by no means an easy year for Ghanaians, on the contrary, it was a very difficult year; so difficult, indeed, that Fit-Lt. Rawlings felt it was impossible to endure. Honesty and fairness demand that they compare the quality of life of the majority of Ghanaians before their intervention to present day realities.
It might be worth their while considering that some of the measures they introduced as part of the ERP package have not worked because of the consequences of their 1982 policies. After arbitrarily freezing all bank accounts of C50,000 and over, it is a wonder they still expect people to have any confidence in the banking system and after collecting C50 notes from poor villagers on a fraudulent excuse, it is a greater wonder that they expect the same people to put their hard-earned monies where the government can have access to it.
Since Dr Botchwey assumed the Finance and Economic Planning job, he has never read a Budget statement to the nation, and yet this is the regime that was going to practice open government, demystify government and consult the people on all things. He has gone to great lengths to deny any IMF help or co-operation in preparing his financial strategies. He denies even more strenuously that the massive devaluations he has been doing have anything to do with the IMF. Now that he says the 1983 agreement with the Fund has ended and he is preparing this year's budget without any Fund assistance, it will be interesting to see if he will manage to present a statement this time.
It is persistently being said that yet another devaluation of the cedi is in the offing and that by April, the exchange rate will be 100 cedis to one US dollar. It is difficult to understand why the PNDC is still coy about devaluing to the level they had undertaken to do. Surely, it cannot be because they fear any political repercussions; that is not likely, having succeeded in intimidating the entire Ghanaian population.
