Gyan Baffour Replies Mosquito: Mahama's Gov�t Lacks Foresight

The Mahama-led government has been accused of lacking foresight and constantly managing Ghana by �crisis.� This, is according to a former Deputy Minister of Finance under the Kufuor administration, Professor Gyan Baffour. �The problem with this government is, they lack foresight, they cannot anticipate anything, they wait till there is a problem and then they try to manage it. So they are managing this country by crisis,� he complained. The former Deputy Minister was responding to a proposal by the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, to government which suggested the oil revenue reserved for future generation in the Ghana Heritage Fund be used to solve Ghana�s problems now. The Ghana Heritage Fund was set up to ensure inter-generational equity and to provide an endowment to support development for future generations when petroleum reserves have been depleted. But he explained it does not make economic sense to keep the money while the nation�s economy is in crisis. Mr. Nketia also suggested the money could be used to undertake major infrastructural and other developmental projects now for the benefit of the future generation. Prof Baffour in an interview on Eyewitness News recalled, he was against the setting up of the Ghana Heritage Fund because �when you have a deficit in development�you don�t go and put some money, stash it in an account somewhere� and bureaucrats actually feed on that money. And when 30 years down the road, you go and then tell your grandson or your children that I have some money sitting in some account for you. Then they will ask you; �are you stupid?� And you didn�t use that money to build the roads for us, you didn�t educate us��