President Akufo-Addo
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has slammed former President John Mahama for having the audacity to ask Ghanaians to give him another mandate, having mismanaged the country during his tenure as President.
“I know that the NDC presidential candidate, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, believes and says often that Ghanaians have a short memory.
“And he must hold strongly to this belief, otherwise, I doubt he would have summoned the courage to be seeking another term after the disaster that was his presidency,” President Akufo-Addo said on Saturday at the launch of the 2020 manifesto of the NPP in Cape Coast.
Taking a further swipe at Mr Mahama for his inconsistency with regards to the Free Senior High School policy, the President said the NPP government will do all it takes to protect the policy and not allow Mr Mahama to review it.
“It was not easily done, and, so, we intend to protect it, and prevent any so-called ‘review’, another word for cancellation. We have no reason to believe the NDC presidential candidate’s newly proclaimed conversion to Free SHS and Free TVET.
“For eight years, he and his party were loud in their assertions that they did not believe in Free SHS and Free TVET, they did not like the idea, they rubbished it at every opportunity, and they proclaimed that it would destroy Ghana’s educational system,” the President said.
“Excellency, please try another one. Your credibility on this one is zero, Free SHS, Free TVET cannot be trusted in your hands,” he added.
New NDC?
President Akufo-Addo wondered what new thing the NDC, led by Mr Mahama, will be bringing on board this time around, if not to rather mismanage the economy and once again visit hardships on Ghanaians.
“And why would anyone imagine that an NDC administration, under the former President, would treat businesses any differently from what they did the last time around?” President Akufo-Addo asked.
He stressed that the NPP government has proved to be better managers of the economy than the NDC.
“Fellow Ghanaians, in spite of the unexpected and dramatic entry into our lives by COVID-19, and the subsequent worldwide devastation, we can demonstrate that we have set the economy on a strong foundation, and businesses will flourish. The virus has slowed us down, but it has not diverted us from the path of growth we have put the country on,” he said.
Identity crisis
Describing the NDC and its leader as not showing any serious signs as opposition party ready to run affairs of the country, President Akufo-Addo said after taking the NDC so long to find a running mate, it is yet again to have a social contract with Ghanaians by showing its manifesto.
“I wonder what will happen the day they have a government to run as well. Or, maybe, it is simply showing the country they do not attach much importance to a manifesto, nor should we expect that whatever is written in it would reflect their beliefs,” the President said.
He added that the NPP, as a political party, takes the issue of manifesto serious, adding that, unlike the NDC, the party has never faced identity crisis.
“We have never had any identity crisis, and our Manifesto always gives us the opportunity to reiterate our historic stand as the party of the rule of law, the party of good governance, the party of business, the party that builds and creates wealth, the party of social justice, and the party that cares for every Ghanaian,” he said.
The President added that even though Mr Mahama might have taken the intelligence of Ghanaians for granted, by describing them as people with short memories, “Our memories are not short enough to forget that the economy, under him, was such a wreck that there was a ban placed on all recruitment into our public services.”
“Our memories are not short enough to forget that teachers taught for three years and were only paid for three months. Our memories are certainly not short enough to forget that he brought our entire financial services system to near collapse,” he added.
According to the President, the assertion by the former President that the economy is not doing well not because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but because of mismanagement, affirms the long held notion that the former President has no knowledge of a “well-managed economy, even if it slapped him in the face.”
NPP sense
Responding to Mr Mahama’s recent public outbursts that NPP’s policies lack sense, the President said he would rather prefer going with the “NPP sense”, which has redeemed the economy from the many problems it inherited from the NDC.
“Having sense in the NPP means executing the programme for Planting for Food and Jobs, which has led to the revival of Ghanaian agriculture from the doldrums of the NDC years, bringing in its wake bumper harvests and affordable food prices in our markets, and exports of significant quantities of food stuffs to our neighbours.
Having sense in the NPP means implementing policies which, according to the latest Ghana Living Standards Survey, has resulted in a decline in unemployment rates from 11.9 per cent in 2015 to 7.3 per cent in 2019. I am happy with and prefer the NPP’s sense,” the President stated.
