Dennis Miracles Aboagye, the spokesperson for the 2024 Bawumia campaign team, has stated that Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s economic performance as Vice President surpasses that of former President John Mahama.
He attributed this to the current New Patriotic Party (NPP) government’s implementation of robust mechanisms to address economic challenges and stabilize the cedi.
Speaking on Citi FM’s Eyewitness News on Monday, Aboagye acknowledged the cedi’s depreciation against the dollar but argued that the NPP has still outperformed the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) government. He cited structural improvements and initiatives aimed at strengthening economic fundamentals.
Reflecting on Dr. Bawumia’s well-known remark during Mahama’s tenure — “You can engage in all the propaganda you want, but if the fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you” — Aboagye noted that at that time, the exchange rate was around GH¢4 to a dollar.
When asked about Dr. Bawumia’s chances in the December polls given the current economic situation, Aboagye responded confidently, “Why not? Compared to everyone else on the ballot, Dr. Bawumia’s record stands out.”
“…Between Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and John Mahama, the two persons and the two governments, we have evidence of a government that has deliberately put in place mechanisms and structures to ensure that we rebuild these weak fundamentals to ensure that we will be able to fix this permanently.”
Aboagye also clarified that Dr Bawumia’s statement regarding the exchange rate was not targeted at Mahama but at the structure of the economy.
“He’s (Bawumia) always insisted that that statement he made then is still true and remains and it hasn’t changed. The statement was not meant to flaw anybody. It was meant to make a statement about the structure of our economy.
“…Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s point has always been the fact we are running a Guggisberg economy, an economy that is import dependent, an economy that lacks the fundamentals that would ensure that we have the industries that are building and manufacturing the things that we use in this country so that we would have a very strong currency…It is targeted at our economy,” he stated.