Throwback: Mahama, Akufo-Addo caught in heated debate

Progressing to become flag bearers of their respective political parties, and subsequently President of the Republic of Ghana, Former President John Dramani Mahama who was then Minister for Communications and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, have been caught in a video engaged in a heated debate.

The video, released by TV3 as they mark their 20th anniversary dates back to 2000. It captures both political actors on a TV program, “Hot Issues” arguing on what their parties would do differently to revamp the economy.

In the build-up to the 2000 presidential elections which was subsequently won by former President John Agyekum Kufuor, Former President Mahama whose party was in power at the time argued on the show that his party had laid a lot of programs to reinvigorate the economy.

“A lot of programs are in place already and are beginning to yield results. We put in the Gateway program, the free zone program which is attracting investment into the free zones. Recently we cut the sod set up a new cocoa processing plant which process 60,000tones of cocoa. We intend to tackle agriculture in a new way.”

President Akufo-Addo, on the contrary, argued that the 20 years Ghana had experienced under the PNDC and NDC regime was enough to revamp and transform the country’s economy to the right footing.

“20 years which is the period of the PNDC and NDC regime, that period was in other countries life enough to transform them from the economies that we have now to talk of Malaysia, Thailand. You cannot develop your economy unless you give producers confidence in their ability to work, take their reward, pay their taxes and get on with their lives.”

Meanwhile, in 2016 when President Akufo-Addo and Former President Mahama were frontrunners of their parties, there seemed to be a tug of war between the two leading political parties (NDC and NPP) on the participation of their presidential candidates in the IEA debates.