Vice Presidential Candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has challenged President John Mahama to produce answers to statements he [Bawumia] made at his last lecture on Ghana's economy at the National Theatre instead of asking him to disclose the cost the redenomination exercise undertaken in 2007 under the NPP.
President Mahama, in an apparent reply to Dr Bawumia's accusations of corruption, on Tuesday at a rally in the Ablekuma North constituency of the Greater Accra Region, stated that Dr Bawumia who was a Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana at the time the cedi redenomination was carried out, could only criticise him if he came clean on how much it cost government to undertake the exercise.
“Do we remember the cedi redenomination under President Kufuor. During that time, someone [Bawumia] was the Deputy Bank of Ghana and up till now, even me as a President do not know the cost of the redenomination exercise", the President stated, adding that, 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".
But responding to President Mahama's insinuations on his Facebook wall, Dr Bawumia stated, "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".
According to him, the president's request was a clear indication that he was not on top of things and was not competent at his job because the information on the cost of the exercise had been made available since 2007.
"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", he stated, adding "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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