Gideon Boako, spokesperson to Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has disputed claims that the Akufo-Addo government made over 500 promises prior to the December 2016 general elections.
While ranking government’s performance in December 2019, policy think tank, IMANI Africa said the governing New Patriotic Party made 510 promises ahead of the 2016 polls. The policy think tank subsequently marked the government 48.78% for honouring its promises.
But Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia at a town hall meeting in Kumasi on Tuesday accounted for 388 promises in the New Patriotic Party’s 2016 manifesto.
He subsequently gave the Akufo-Addo government 78% for the fulfilment of their promises.
President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe explained that its methodology prioritized governance and economy hence the 48.78%.
But Bawumia’s spokesperson, Gideon Boako in a Citi News interview said IMANI Africa got it wrong.
“We wrote our manifesto, so we know the number of promises we made. No one else can tell us the number of promises we made apart from us. Our manifesto promise is a living document and it is there. Anybody at all can go and take the manifesto page by page and count the number of promises. So I do not know how IMANI arrived at the 510 promises. We requested for their data and we realised that for some of the promises, depending on how they understand it, they broke them into pieces. So what we see as an omnibus promise, they may break it into five or seven, that is why they got that number,” he said.
IMANI’s stance
Franklin Cudjoe explained that IMANI’s weighted metric saw the economy contributing to 25 percent of the assessment, governance contributing to 25 percent of the assessment, infrastructure contributing to 20 percent while human capital and social policy contributed 15 percent apiece.
He noted that “when you do that, you pay attention to the fact that issues under governance and economy are critical.”
As an example, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] also prioritises the governance and economic indicators in assessing development.
“They [OECD] tell you that in assessing government, the economy and government are virtually the most important, which is why even in [the Ease of Doing Business Reports], the indices that are most notable are the ones that relate to the economy.”
Other variances
In other notable variances between IMANI and the government, the think tank cited the government for 410 promises while the government gave account for 388 promises.
The government said it had delivered 114 of its promises and was in the process of delivering 189 others from its 2016 manifesto.
Mr. Cudjoe said that IMANI took into account even “minute” promises by the state and his outfit “did a much thorough job.”
IMANI also scored the government 54.35 percent in the delivery of its commitments on the economy, 46.21 percent on governance, 46.44 percent on infrastructure and 39.13 percent and 43.78 percent on human capital development and social services respectively.