GhanaWeb Feature by Ishmael Batoma:
Days before the 2024 presidential election, President John Dramani Mahama, either confident of emerging victorious or as a campaign tactic, signed a social contract with Ghanaians.
This contract, which Mahama dubbed, “Mahama’s First 120 Days Social Contract with the People of Ghana,” as the name suggests, outlined things he would undertake in the first 120 days of his government.
The promise list had 25 actions, programmes, and policies Mahama promised to undertake within the 120 days, which are aimed at economic recovery, governance reform, and social interventions.
Wednesday, May 7, 2025, marks exactly 120 days since President Mahama and his vice, Prof Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang – the first female vice president of Ghana, were sworn into office on January 7, 2025.
This GhanaWeb article analyses Mahama’s 120-day social contract to ascertain the status of all the promises in it.
Analysis:
The GhanaWeb Data Desk has evaluated 25 of these promises, assigning scores based on their completion statuses by May 7, 2025 – the 120th day of Mahama’s presidency.
The scoring system awards 1 point for completed promises, 0.5 for partially completed promises and 0 for uncompleted promises.
In all, 17 out of the 25 action items listed in the contract have been completed per GhanaWeb’s analysis, representing 68%. Three (3) of the promises, representing 12% of the total, have been partially completed so far, while five (5), 20% – remain untouched.
Accumulating the points from the established scoring system gives President Mahama a score of 18.5 out of 25.
This, in percentage terms, translates to the president scoring 74% on his social contract with Ghanaians. The 74% score in Ghana’s grading system is equivalent to a grade B, which means that Mahama has done a “good,” not an “excellent” or a “very good” job on his contract with the people of Ghana.
Here is a breakdown of the status of actionable items on Mahama’s social contract:
Completed action items on the social contract:
1. President Mahama has achieved his promise to nominate, within the first 14 days, the complete list of Cabinet ministers for parliamentary approval.
The president, within the 14 days, nominated a total of 42 ministerial nominees, which included Cabinet, non-Cabinet and regional ministers.
All of these nominees were vetted and approved in less than a month, which in itself is unprecedented.
2. Mahama also achieved his promise to hold a National Economic Dialogue to discuss the true state of the economy and prepare a homegrown fiscal consolidation programme to guide the budget.
3. He established a seven-member National Economic Dialogue Planning Committee, led by renowned economist, Dr Ishmael Yamson, which organised the forum from March 3, 2025, to March 4, 2025.
Mahama has also fulfilled his promise to convene a national consultative conference on education to build consensus on needed improvements to the sector.
The president established an eight-member committee to oversee the National Education Forum, which will review the educational sector. The forum was held from February 18, 2025, to February 28, 2025.
4. Mahama also promised to reopen investigations into major unresolved criminal cases, including the 2020 Election killings, Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election violence, the murder of Ahmed Hussein-Suale, and Silas Wulochamey.
He has so far ordered the Inspector General of Police to open investigations into electoral killings that were experienced in the 2020 and 2024 elections.
5. Mahama promised, “Within my first 90 days in office, [I will] scrap the following draconian taxes to alleviate hardships and ease the high cost of doing business: E-Levy, COVID Levy, 10% Levy on Bet Winnings, and Emissions Levy.”
This promise was achieved after the passage of the 2025 Budget Statement and Economic Policy.
6. Mahama has also achieved his promise to implement the ‘No-Academic-Fee’ policy for all first-year students in public tertiary institutions — universities, colleges of education, nursing training institutions, etc.
7. He has also fulfilled his promise to introduce the following social interventions: Free Tertiary Education for Persons with Disabilities and the Ghana Medical Care Trust (MahamaCares) Fund.
8. Mahama has also achieved his promise to commence the distribution of free sanitary pads to female students in primary and secondary schools.
9. He has allocated seed money of about GH¢500 million for the establishment of the Women’s Development Bank, as promised.
10. He has also launched the following priority job creation programmes: the ‘Adwumawura’ Programme, the ‘National Apprenticeship Programme’, and the ‘One Million Coders Programme’.
11. As promised, Mahama has allocated monies to compensate the flood victims from the Akosombo Dam spillage, including those in the Oti, Bono East, and Savannah regions.
12. The president promised to constitute the “Leanest and Most Efficient” government under the 4th Republic of not more than 60 ministers and deputy ministers in his first 90 days in office.
The president, within 30 days of his government, appointed 56 ministerial and deputy ministerial nominees (23 ministers, 16 regional ministers, 13 deputy ministers and 4 ministers of state). It is not clear whether there is going to be an additional ministerial or deputy ministerial appointment to get the 60 ministers he indicated.
13. He also promised to commence drafting needed legal amendments and prepare for implementing the 24-Hour Economy Policy under the Office of the President.
President Mahama, in relation to this promise, has appointed former presidential hopeful, Augustus Goosie Tanoh, as the Presidential Advisor for the 24-Hour Economy and Accelerated Export Development. Augustus Goosie Tanoh has also briefed Parliament on the policy and presentation of the draft document on the policy.
14. President Mahama has also fulfilled his promise to establish a robust “Code of Conduct and Standards” for all government officials.
15. He has also instituted a government policy banning political appointees from purchasing state assets, as promised. This promise was one of the provisions listed in the “Code of Conduct and Standards” for all government officials.
16. The government, as promised, has also commenced the review of the Customs (Amendment) Act 2020 to scrap the law banning the importation of salvaged vehicles to rescue the local automotive industry at Suame Magazine, Kokompe, Abossey Okai, among others.
17. He has also launched ‘The Black Star Experience’ initiative as Ghana’s flagship culture, arts, and tourism brand to transform Ghana into a preferred tourism destination.
Partially completed social contract promises:
President Mahama promised to ban illegal and new mining activities in forest reserves, and roll out the ‘Tree for Life’ and Blue Water Initiative to heal and sustainably harness the environment by turning areas and water bodies degraded by illegal mining into economic and ecological recovery hubs.
This promise has been partially achieved because, even though the president issued a directive, through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for the immediate halt of illegal mining activities in forests and water bodies and launched the Tree for Life and Blue Water Initiative, he has not repealed the law on mining in forest reserves, which will completely outlaw the practice that was allowed by the previous government.
2. Mahama has also partially fulfilled his promise to lay before Parliament a new bill to streamline government scholarship administration, prohibit political appointees from accessing government scholarships, and eliminate political patronage, cronyism, nepotism, and corruption in awarding government scholarships.
The Minister of Education has announced that the bill has been drafted and will be laid before Parliament, which has been on recess for about two months, when it reconvenes.
3. The promise to carry out a shake-up of all loss-making State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and realign them to break even and transition into profit-making has also been partially fulfilled.
Though the presidency has held a number of engagements with the heads of State-Owned Enterprises he has appointed, a clear policy on how to make them profitable has not been outlined.
Uncompleted promises:
1. The president has also failed to “within my first 90 days in office, review taxes and levies on vehicles and equipment imported into the country for industrial and agricultural purposes.”
2. Mahama has also not achieved his promise to establish an Accelerated Export Development Council (AEDC) to promote exports as part of a broader strategy for economic transformation.
3. The president is also yet to institute inquiries and/or forensic audits into the following matters of public interest: the collapse of indigenous Ghanaian banks and financial institutions at a supposed cost of GH¢25 billion, illegal printing of money, the US$58 million National Cathedral scandal, illegal and inflated single-sourced contracts, COVID-19 expenditure scandal, PDS, Agyapa, SML, ambulance spare parts deal, 13th African Games, Sky Train, Pwalugu Dam, mathematics sets, galamsey fraud, missing excavators and tricycles, Sputnik-V, BOST scandal, and others, as he promised.
4. His promise to commence investigative processes to purge state security agencies of all militia and vigilante elements is also yet to be fulfilled.
5. He has also not initiated a probe into the man-made disaster caused by the VRA’s spillage from the Akosombo and Kpong Dams that displaced and destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of citizens in the Volta, Eastern, and Greater Accra regions.
All in all, President John Dramani Mahama’s administration, for the most part, has shown commitment, largely, to achieving those contracts with the people of Ghana.
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