Mahama’s tours a disguised campaign – Lecturer

A lecturer at the Department of History and Political Studies at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Mohammed Abass, has said President John Mahama is campaigning under the guise of his ‘Accounting to the People Tour’.

Mr Mahama is currently in the Volta Region on the third leg of his tour and will visit all 10 regions of the country prior to returning to resuming official duties at the Flagstaff House

But Mr Abass told Nana Ama Agyarko on Accra mid-day news on Tuesday April 19 that the visit, officially described as a tour for the president to familiarise himself with projects in the various regions of the country, is a disguised campaign.

However, the academic insisted that even if officialdom maintained the exercise was purely for administrative purposes that would imply weak leadership and a lack of trust in the president’s appointees in the regions and at local government levels.

“In my opinion, this is an incompetent way of managing affairs because he (the president) has representatives in whichever part of the country. They account to you (the president) directly, so, they can tell which projects have been accomplished and which have not. If you do not trust your appointees, then why, in the first place, did you appoint them?

He was of the view that instead of the president going on tours across the country, “the [regional] ministers can inspect all projects within the region and update the president on the state of affairs”.

“So, if he cannot trust them, then I do not know how to describe our democracy,” Mr Abass stated.

Mr Abass added that he shared the sentiments of some opposition parties, mainly the New Patriotic Party, the Progressive People’s Party, and the Convention People’s Party, which have expressed their disagreement with the tour.

He told Nana Ama Agyarko on the news bulletin that: “Considering what they (the opposition parties) have said and the president’s explanation, I would say what they (the opposition parties) are saying is more sensible than the president’s because if it is about accountability to the people, this is not how to go about accounting to people.

“Accountability does not mean travelling the whole of Ghana, because as you go on tour, you spend so much money and it is not your personal money. At the end of the day, will he come and ask Ghanaians that: ‘We used this amount of money on our tour and what do Ghanaians think about it?’ Is it legitimate to use this amount for a tour and does the tour represent accountability to the people?

“It is difficult to accept this because if it is about accountability, you can be at one place and show all projects undertaken by government.”

To him, the government’s ‘Green Book’ cataloguing its achievements, should have sufficed for accountability, for which reason there would have been no obligation to go round the whole country.

“So, it’s a campaign he is embarking on because it is election season,” the academic emphasised.