Mahama, Akufo-Addo infrastructure debate unnecessary - Ivor Greenstreet

The flagbearer of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) Ivor Kobina Greenstreet has said it is unnecessary former President John Dramani Mahama and the sitting President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to be debating on infrastructure when the ordinary Ghanaian is hungry and cannot afford medical bills.

Mr Mahama was the first to call for a debate between himself and President Akufo-Addo on whose government stands tall so far as Ghana’s infrastructural development is concerned.

Mr Mahama even said President Nana Akufo-Addo is at liberty to choose a moderator and a venue for the debate but the NPP says debating the former president is not in its campaign plans.

“If Mr Mahama wants a debate, from where I sit today, I don’t think the NPP has given it a thought. The NPP will fight this election on our terms. As I speak, the party hasn’t given it a thought for us to have any debate with Mr Mahama, we are going according to our campaign strategy…Bawumia put forward data-driven presentation...we want Mr Mahama or his running mate to put forward another data-driven presentation to counter what Dr Bawumia did. Let’s set that ground rules first and then we can move to the next stage,” Mr Sammi Awuku, National Organiser of the NPP said.

Reacting to this development in an interview on Dwabirem on CTV on Monday, 24 August 2020, Mr Greenstreet noted that the debate was unnecessary when the two parties have failed to tackle the bread and butter issues affecting the ordinary Ghanaian.

Mr Greenstreet told show host Kwame Appiah Kubi that: “I don’t see that debate as necessary or being very important for Ghanaians at the moment. At a point in time, I remember correctly the former, President John Agyekum Kufuor when he was then a candidate, told the then vice president who was also a candidate, Prof John Evans Atta Mills that Ghanaians don’t eat roads.

“So, if you have all these infrastructures and you’re walking the streets but you’re hungry, you have all these infrastructures but you’re walking the streets and you’re finding it difficult to pay the bills of your sick relatives, if you’re walking the streets and with all these infrastructure and you don’t have employment, enough money to sustain you, then what difference does it make, it doesn’t make any difference at all and that is the infrastructure that we shall be speaking about.”

According to the two-time flagbearer of the CPP, the CPP will this year be campaigning on “the infrastructure of the hearts and minds of ordinary Ghanaians, the infrastructure of the stomachs of the ordinary Ghanaian, the infrastructure of lack of hope of the ordinary Ghanaian, that is the deeper infrastructure that we should appeal to”.