Hot start for NPP government

It is early yet but President John Agyekum Kufuor's promise of ushering in a positive change in Ghana political life is already under intense strain, says the Public Agenda.

The number of controversial issues just keeps popping up by the day.

Among them are how the new NPP government should deal with some of the sordid details of the PNDC/NDC era, what out-going ministers and MPs should take home at the end of their terms and what the current MPs and future DCES should be given.

These issues are clogging the airwaves and dominating discussions in homes and offices. Allegation of improper sale of cars to ex-ministers and other appointees of the NDC government and hefty bonuses for MPs of the last Parliament put both the new administration and the former government on the defensive for the best part of last week.

The NPP has been accused of striking a "bad deal" with the old regime as well as continuing and possibly worsening old habits like granting freebies specifically, the proposal to build five- bedroom houses for current MPs and future DCEs.

Such accusations have with some suddenness pushed the NPP into the role of the defendant instead of prosecutor in the court of public opinion.

The Chief of Staff, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey has been working in over-drive to try and dissociate the new administration from the loud grumbling against his government.

The NDC has also been on the defensive. It has argued that there was nothing wrong with the ex-ministers buying the cars they used while in office at less than 15 per cent of the their worth. It is a convention even in the public service, NDC argues.

"The sale of the vehicles is in line with an existing policy whereby senior public officers on leaving office are given the option to purchase one saloon car which they were using," the paper reports Alhaji Huudu Yahaya General Secretary of the NDC as having said at a press confab last Friday