NDC branch executives unhappy with Mahama over jobs

On Tuesday, March, 21 2023, former President Mahama plans to touch base in Tema to campaign among delegates of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), for their votes to become flagbearer again.

Ahead of the visit, Mr. Mahama and his team have been doing the groundwork as part of which some campaign team members were dispatched to go to the Tema East constituency to organize the party executives in preparation.

However, the response to the advances of Mr. Mahama have not exactly been warm. Rather, anger has been sparked over Mr. John Mahama’s historic failure to give NDC faithful jobs when he was President.

“You were President for four years and throughout the period we had no jobs; not even one person was employed with the Meridian Port Service for instance even though you had awarded them the contract to be in charge of cargo at the port and now you are asking us to gather so you will come and convince us to vote you again,” whined Mr. Dz Ashitey, a branch executive said.

“You think we are jokers?” he asked rhetorically.

Mr. Ashitey was one of many executives who had turned up initially thinking that the purpose of the meeting that had been called was to receive information from the camp of former Finance Minister, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, who had last week met with the delegates there.

Another executive, Mr. A. Adjei was so angry over the meeting, he said he would have peppered Mr. Mahama with questions if the former President were to be standing close to him at the meeting grounds.

“I would ask him to look me in the eye and honestly answer me whether he would have prepared to elect himself if he were me and I were him, after the neglect he subjected us to when he was President.”

The angry executives who spoke on the sidelines of the Branch Executives meeting made it emphatically clear that Mr. Mahama has lost their trust.

“It’s not like we do not know who we are talking about, we have seen his style of governance before and we remember that under him, we were told that we did not have university degrees and so we were not qualified to be employed in state institutions,” said Mr. Ashitey.

The poorly attended meeting had many of the executives abstaining while many of those who attended came wearing Duffuor campaign t-shirts.

For the executives, Mr. Mahama’s woes are annoying because after he awarded the infamous MPS contract, these same executives were denied opportunity to work at the port when they applied.

“Can you imagine that immediately Akufo-Addo came to power he put NPP people there? some do not even have BECE certificates. So as for us in the NDC we don’t know good things? We will never allow Mahama to deceive us again,” added Mr. Ashitey.

Meanwhile, the executives were full of praise for Dr. Kwabena Duffuor who has made it clear that under his administration, degrees and long educational certificates are not what are going to determine who benefits from the spoils of government like Mahama did, but dedication and service.