NDC Cries Over Kufuor's Foreign Trips

THE WESTERN Regional Chairman of the NDC in waiting, Nana Alex Asamoah has alleged that President Kufuor takes home a whopping sum of $1,000 a day as his per diem anytime he travels outside the country on official assignment.

He also alleged that ministers and other state officials who usually accompany the President also take home $250 a day as their per diem as against $53 which was being paid former NDC government officials which the then opposition NPP severely criticised as being too much.


This, he continued, means that for the past seven or so days that the President and his entourage have spent in Spain, he is going to be rich by almost ?70 million at the expense of the Ghanaian tax payer not forgetting the total amount that would accrue to his ministers and other members of the delegation.


Speaking at a meeting with the Takoradi branch of the 31st December Women's Movement in Takoradi last Friday, Asamoah said as at the time he was speaking, the minority in Parliament had already summoned the sector minister to come and explain to Ghanaians how much the state has spent on the numerous trips made by the President to foreign countries but they are refusing to do that.


According to him, the minority tabled the motion in Parliament because they realised that the frequent trips abroad by the President were affecting the country which has declared itself as a Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC).


Touching on the National Reconciliation Bill, which is currently before Parliament, Asamoah said majority of Ghanaians are of the opinion that it should start from 1957 but the government is refusing to listen to this, a point he argued, is against the tenets of true democratic practice.


He, however, commended the minority leader for the good work he and his colleagues are doing in Parliament to keep the government on its toes and also follow the democratic principles.

The former District Chief Executive (DCE) for Mfantsiman in the Central Region, Mr. George Kuntu Blankson on his part said no matter the level of mechanisation that will go on, the NDC will surely come back to power in 2004.


He, therefore, urged supporters of the party to debunk some of the allegations being levelled against the former NDC government such as the much publicised ?41trillion debt it allegedly left behind.


According to him, the NDC suffered its first electoral defeat because Ghanaians claimed things were not going on well in the country but the new NPP government, he alleged, is even doing the worst things thus making life unbearable for the people.


He said though the government claimed it was conscious about employment generation, it has at the same time sacked as many as 3,000 Ghanaians who were working as mobilisation staff with only two months pay as their reward after working for almost 18 years.


According to him, it is not only mobilisation that has been affected but other staff working with some government agencies who have link with the NDC have also been sacked and their positions taken over by NPP sympathisers.