Every generation is confronted with a fundamental question: what kind of leadership does the future require?
For Ghana, the answer is becoming increasingly clear. We do not merely need a politician. We need a problem solver. We need a leader with the vision to identify the obstacles holding our society back, the courage to challenge old ways of doing things, and the competence to build practical solutions that improve people’s lives.
That leader is Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.
Throughout his public life, whether at the Bank of Ghana or as Vice President, Dr Bawumia has demonstrated a distinctive mindset: when confronted with a problem that has frustrated Ghanaians for decades, he asks not why it cannot be solved, but how it can be solved, and when he is given the space to operate, he simply gets to work. No fizz, no buzz, no PR; he just gets the work done.
For the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr Bawumia appears to be easy political prey. Their argument is straightforward: he was presented as Ghana’s economic guru, yet under his tenure as Vice President and Chairman of the Economic Management Team, Ghana experienced its harshest economic crisis since 1998–2000 during 2022–2023.
But how true is this narrative?
Economic crises are unfortunately not new to Ghana. Since the First Republic, successive governments have turned to the IMF during periods of severe economic distress.
Every administration since the 1960s has grappled with currency depreciation, balance-of-payments challenges, inflationary pressures and macroeconomic instability. Economic crises themselves are therefore not uniquely Ghanaian phenomena.
What was different about the 2022–2023 crisis was the response championed by Dr Mahamudu Bawumia. And he did so quietly.
No noise. No grandstanding. Have we stopped to ask ourselves why there were no queues at our filling stations and no empty shelves in our pharmacies at a time when the cedi was rapidly losing value?
Rather than viewing the crisis merely as a temporary emergency requiring only the usual external rescue, Dr Bawumia sought to use Ghana’s darkest economic moment to build a permanent solution for future generations.
He recognised that Ghana had long possessed one of the world’s most valuable strategic assets but had never fully leveraged it to protect the national economy: gold.
Gold for Stability
For centuries, Ghana has been one of the world’s leading gold-producing nations. Alongside South Africa, we have remained among Africa’s foremost gold exporters for over a century and, in recent years, Ghana has emerged as Africa’s largest gold producer and one of the world’s leading producers.
Dr Bawumia’s insight was simple but transformative: if Ghana possessed one of the world’s most valuable reserve assets, why should it remain perpetually vulnerable to external currency shocks?
Out of the crisis emerged the Gold Purchase Program, Gold for Oil, and subsequently the Gold-for-Forex strategy, which sought to use Ghana’s own natural wealth to stabilize the cedi, build foreign exchange reserves, and reduce dependence on external financing.
Rather than waiting passively for international institutions to solve Ghana’s problems, Dr Bawumia pioneered a model of macroeconomic resilience built around Ghana’s own resources.
The significance of this innovation was recognised in the 2024 NPP Manifesto, which described the Gold-for-Forex programme as a successful pilot that should be institutionalised as a permanent pillar of Ghana’s economic architecture. As Dr Bawumia stated at the NPP Manifesto Launch on Sunday, 18 August 2024:
“We are going to buy and refine gold to serve as a reserve to back the cedi… We will institutionalise Gold for Forex to make it the main basic anchor for the cedi’s stability.”
The NDC, which spent the 2024 campaign promoting its 24-hour economy policy while branding Bawumia a liar, did something remarkable after assuming office in January 2025.
One of its earliest and most significant economic initiatives was to adopt and expand the very gold-based stabilisation framework proposed by Bawumia in the NPP Manifesto.
While Bawumia had implemented the policy through existing institutions such as the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC), the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF) and the Bank of Ghana, the NDC established GoldBod to institutionalise the same underlying approach.
One may reasonably ask: why did the most significant new institution created by the Mahama administration not appear anywhere in the NDC’s own 2024 manifesto, while flagship promises such as the Women’s Bank were not given similar urgency?
The answer may be simpler than many are prepared to admit. While calling Bawumia a liar, they were quietly relying on Bawumia’s solution. He became Mahama’s own economic guru. But, secretly.
That is why, today, the very government that benefited politically from the economic crisis has continued to rely heavily on this gold-based stabilisation framework. Its effectiveness has become increasingly difficult to ignore.
So, when you hear the NDC boasting about a stable currency, lower interest rates and falling inflation, remind them of the words of the Minority Leader to President John Mahama:
“Give unto Bawumia what belongs to Bawumia.”
Increasingly, policymakers and central banks across Africa are paying closer attention to the Bawumia Model, the strategic use of natural resources, particularly gold, as instruments for strengthening foreign exchange reserves, enhancing macroeconomic resilience and reducing vulnerability to external shocks. In this regard, Ghana’s experience under Dr Bawumia’s solution has emerged as an important case study.
In that sense, the most important legacy of Dr Bawumia’s leadership during the 2022–2023 crisis may not simply be that he helped Ghana weather one of the most difficult economic storms in its history or, as the propagandists would have it, he was part of the problem. No. Crisis do happen. But, how to build resilience against future recurrence.
So the Bawumia legacy from that crisis is that he bequeathed to Ghana a long-term economic stabilisation framework, anchored on the strategic use of our own natural resources, which future governments can leverage to create jobs, stimulate economic growth, reduce the cost of living, improve public services and ultimately improve the lives and prosperity of the Ghanaian people.
So as the country over the next 24 or so months consider who takes over after John Mahama, the question before Ghana will not simply about who can govern.
The question should be: who has demonstrated the capacity to identify problems, design solutions and successfully implement them? Who can we trust to apply lasting solutions?
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s record demonstrates a leader whose instinct has always been to seek solutions where others see obstacles, to embrace innovation where others defend outdated systems, and to prepare Ghana not merely for today’s challenges, but for tomorrow’s opportunities.
In an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world, Ghana needs a leader who understands both the difficulties of our past and the possibilities of our future.
For millions of young Ghanaians seeking opportunity, innovation, jobs and hope, the message is simple: Some leaders see problems. Dr Mahamudu Bawumia sees solutions.
By Dr Kofi Omintimminim Apesemaka
