Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s supposed response to the problems being pointed out by the #FixTheCountry conveners has been described by a member of the campaign as insensitive and mediocre.
Speaking to Abena Tabi on The Key Points on TV3 on Saturday, May 8, Yaw Moses said: “We are not talking about figures that are not reflecting on the ground.
“You go to the market yourself and the inflation figures he [VP] is mentioning does not correspond to the reality on the ground. We are talking about what is on the ground and not the mentioning of some mediocre figures.”
The Vice President Bawumia in a post to respond to the #FixTheCountry campaign said “the job of the government is to fix problems”, which he said, “is what we have been doing since 2017”.
He, however, attributed the slowdown of the economy to the Covid-19 pandemic which he said: “has slowed down the global economy and caused increases in prices of commodities such as oil, cement and iron rods as well as the overall cost of shipping”.
“We are four months into our four-year mandate. The job of the government is to fix problems. This is what we have been doing since 2017. The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down the global economy and caused increases in prices of commodities such as oil, cement and iron rods as well as the overall cost of shipping. Nevertheless, it is very important to place the performance of our government over the last four years after inheriting an economy with “no meat on the bone” on record. Ours is a government that listens and cares. The facts and data speak for themselves.”
But Yaw Moses said if the Vice President was on the ground to know that “the cost of a bag of cement is now GH¢50 and the cost of iron rods have skyrocketed, he would not come with excel sheets”.
The Vice President Bawumia in his post gave instances that his government inherited a 15.4% inflation which he said has been reduced to 10.3% and also reduced a 32% bank lending rate to 21% but Yaw Moses disagreed that these figures have had a positive effect on Ghanaians, asking “if the figures had anything to offer, why are they [in opposition to the #FixTheCountry campaign] asking us to fix ourselves?”
Yaw Moses said people should prep themselves up for more demonstrations because “so long as people do not have portable water to drink, so long as our roads are not motorable to drive on, so long as we still have accidents on our roads and so long as people remain unemployed, the #FixTheCountry movement is here to stay.”
The movement had planned a demonstration for Sunday, May 9 but the police secured an injunction against it, leaving the demonstration hanging on the balance which Yaw Moses described as “a systematic way of frustrating our efforts because the campaign has gained too much momentum the government is afraid to see us on the streets”.
“That will not dampen our spirit, trust me, it will not. People lost their lives for us to gain independence, if it will take us to lose our lives for the system to work, we are ready to sacrifice our lives for the system to work,” he added.
The demonstration has since been taken virtually with protesters asked to toot horns and bang on utensils across the nation hourly between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm Sunday.
The hashtag has also changed from #FixTheCountry to #FixMotherGhana to coincide with the Mother’s Day celebration.