Mahama putting people first misleading - Kamal Deen

The National Nasara Coordinator for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kamal Deen-Abdulai has described the highlights of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), manifesto organised last Tuesday as a low light.

President John Dramani Mahama on Tuesday said,The next four years will build on the structure we have already established and will focus on Putting People First; Building a strong economy for job creation; Expanding infrastructure for accelerated development and Advancing transparent and accountable governance.

Touching on education among other sectors, President Mahama said, ''we will complete the construction of all the community senior high schools ...We are going to pilot electronic textbooks in Junior and Senior High Schools...We will increase the capacity for technical training by 30% and fit them with technical training...Government will look for new ways to fund the NHIS, to help sustain it. ..We've almost completed the 2nd military hospital in the Ashanti Region.

Maritime hospital will be completed this year,'' the president said among other things the party will do if retained. But responding to the highlights and the promises outlined by the NDC, Kamal Deen said, there was nothing refreshing about what the president said.

Speaking in an interview with Kwame Tutu on Rainbow Radio 87.5Fm, he noted that the putting people first mantra outlined by President Mahama, was an old promise which his administration has failed to fulfill. Economic hardship, killer taxes and utility tariffs, delays in salaries among other challenges he posited defeats the putting people first mantra touted by the NDC. The growth of the economy he explained has declined drastically under the NDC despite the massive growth under the erstwhile Kufour administration without oil.

What we should be asking ourselves is whether the cost of living, production and doing business has gone up or not? Surely it has gone up completely. So where is this idea of i'm putting people first? Many have lost their lives due to our energy crisis (popularly called dumsor). And you are back promising that you will put people first.

President Mahama's performance is abysmal and so this whole idea of putting people first is misleading.

On energy, agriculture, education and other sectors, President Mahama has failed woefully. So they should refer to the event as a low light of a manifesto and not highlight because it was below the belt.'' He also took a swipe at the NDC for ''stealing'' the ideas of Nana Addo after widely criticising him over them. He also expressed his displeasure at President Mahama for failing to touch on any development agenda for the Zongo Communities.

Kamal Deen expressed strong optimism that Nana Akufo Addo will surely win the election and deliver to Ghanaians a first class government as promised.