Akufo-Addo needs proper briefing – Sam George

A member of NDC’s communication team, Samuel George, has chided the flagbearer of the opposition NPP Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo for surrounding himself with incompetent people.

He said he finds it interesting that Nana Addo who has consistently made it a habit of describing President John Mahama as incompetent rather ends up “embarrassing himself”.

Speaking to Accra-based Metro TV, the parliamentary candidate for Ningo Prampram noted on several occasions, the caliber of personalities around the NPP presidential candidate end up exposing him.

“Nana Addo is always getting his facts wrong and it’s happened consistently. He got the cost of the Kasoa interchange wrong, he got the total of Ghana’s debt stock wrong, he got the cost of the Ridge Hospital wrong [and] I can go on and on.

“The latest is the conversion of Polytechnics into Technical Universities issue, and the building of factories which he stole from the 2014 budget. He either lies or gets his facts wrong all the time. It’s embarrassing to say the least. I wonder why his handlers are doing this to him,” George argued.

George was commenting on the raging debate on the originality and feasibility of a policy pledged by Nana Akufo-Addo to build one factory in every district across the country.

But critics of the industry per district policy have said it does not appear feasible and at best it could be termed as a campaign rhetoric to win votes. Head of policy think tank IMANI Franklin Cudjoe has also cast serious doubts over it.

Nana Akomea, NPP’s Director of Communications, admitted that the party is yet to consult experts and the private sector.

Mr George is accusing Nana Addo of stealing the policy from the governing NDC. He said unlike Mahama who is walking the talk by building factories, the NPP lacks the capacity and track record to do same even if the policy was doable.

“Go and check their 2000 manifesto and see for yourself the number of promises the NPP had broken and yet they want Ghanaians to trust them and give them another opportunity to come and govern the country. In that manifesto they promised to convert all chop bars to modern day restaurants, it didn’t happen, they also promised to build one secondary school per district but they failed to do that. They also promised to convert the slum areas like Nima into a first class community. I can go on and on and on. So how do they expect Ghanaians to take him seriously?”

Meanwhile, an aide to Nana Akufo-Addo, Abu Jinapor who was also on the same programme said there is the need to go beyond a mere mention of the idea to focusing on how it can be actualised even though the party admits that the policy did not originate from the NPP. He said it is possible the ruling NDC may have thought of the idea first.