Opponents cite management and delivery concerns while analysts urge clear metrics and independent data before judging party performance
Ghana’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) faces renewed criticism that it “has not made any impact,” a contention voiced by opposition lawmakers and reproduced in Ghanaian media after one year of the party’s most recent time in office. The debate matters because such assertions shape electoral narratives and influence public expectations about governance and economic management.
The claim that “the NDC has not made any impact” is a normative statement that requires definition and evidence, analysts say. Measuring political impact requires clear metrics — electoral performance, legislation passed, programme delivery, macroeconomic indicators, infrastructure completion and governance outcomes — and public data from government and independent bodies to substantiate any absolute judgement.
Background and contested claim
The NDC is a major political party in Ghana, founded in 1992 by Jerry John Rawlings. Rawlings won the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections for the NDC and served as president under the Fourth Republic from January 1993 to January 2001. The party returned to the presidency in 2008 with John Evans Atta Mills and remained in office through John Dramani Mahama until January 2017; Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo‑Addo of the New Patriotic Party won the 2016 election and was reelected in 2020.
An individual political figure, Kwesi Afenyo‑Markin, publicly stated that the Mahama government “has made no real impact after one year in office,” and local media reported the comment as a representative criticism of the NDC’s performance during that period. The publication attributed the charge to Afenyo‑Markin; the report presents the statement as political criticism rather than as a data‑driven evaluation.
What independent data show — and do not show
Independent evaluation of the claim requires consulting several documentary sources. Electoral records from the Electoral Commission of Ghana establish vote and seat outcomes and provide a baseline for assessing political performance over time. Macroeconomic and social indicators — GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, poverty rates and public‑debt ratios — appear in datasets maintained by the Ghana Statistical Service, the Bank of Ghana, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; researchers must deploy those series if they intend to link outcomes to specific administrations or policies.
Historical policy milestones during periods when the NDC held office include the start of commercial oil production around late 2010, which affected fiscal and external balances and requires careful attribution when assessing government performance. Audits, parliamentary probe reports and court records have documented controversies involving NDC administrations; specific outcomes of those inquiries and their implications for governance assessments require consultation of the Auditor‑General’s reports and parliamentary records.
Supporters of the NDC point to electoral victories, social programmes and infrastructure projects that occurred under past NDC administrations as evidence of tangible impact. Opponents highlight alleged mismanagement and specific contract controversies to argue that the party failed to deliver value for money and governance improvements; such claims appear in media reporting and in calls for investigations. Independent analysts caution that attributing macroeconomic outcomes to a single party without counterfactual analysis risks oversimplification.