FLASHBACK: Mahama deserves no credit for fixing dumsor – Bawumia

This story was originally published in 2016
by ​adomonline. com

Running mate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has said that President John Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration deserve no credit for ‘solving’ the energy crisis, known in local parlance as ‘Dumsor’.

​The former deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, speaking on Joy FM, said he sees no reason why President Mahama would want the whole world to praise him for solving a problem he created.

“This government inherited an economy without dumsor. It is their own financial mismanagement which caused it…so we see no reason why they deserve credit for fixing a problem they created,” Dr. Bawumia said.

President Mahama during the 2016 State of the Nation Address (SONA) in Parliament called on Ghanaians to pat the government on the back for embarking on what he called the fastest mobilisation of resources to fix the crisis, which crippled the country’s economy for well over three years.

“I stood before this very august house and promised to fix the power sector deficit that at the time had become a significant constraint to the economic growth and a distraction to Ghanaians both home and at work.

“This was a time of considerable national anxiety. The deficit brought about a severe power rationing and I was very much concerned. Ghanaians had to sleep in darkness or spend money to fuel generators. Businesses faced challenges, and I expressed my full regret to the nation and I took full responsibility as President and leader of this nation and commander in Chief...,” he said.

The President added that he was able to fix the power outage because he put in place plans that “made us achieve the fastest mobilization of emergency power in the history of Ghana.”

But Dr. Bawumia insists the government deserves no credit for fixing a problem they created themselves.

To him, he only felt vindicated that the government came to the realization that dumsor was a financial problem and mobilized enough resources to manage it.

He pledged that an NPP administration would not ‘mismanage the economy to the extent that the country would end up in dumsor’.