NDC chairman slams NPP over ‘dumsor’ slogan

The Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency Chairman of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Greater Accra Region, Hon. Ibrahim Jajah, has indicated that the belief held by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to use the current energy crisis as campaign tool in the coming elections would not work, since government has begun providing alternative measures to end the situation.

According to him, the Mahama-led government is putting in place positive measures that would solve the problem and that the NPP would surely lose the battle if it fails to face the realities on the ground.

In an interview, Hon. Ibrahim Jajah indicated that the NDC government was responding passionately to the problem on hand and is signing emergency pacts with Turkey and Dubai and also introducing extensive reduction on power conservation.

He said government is working closely to add about 3,000 megawatts of power to the national grid by 2018 and that the dumsor would surely end.

Government, he stressed, has signed agreement with a number of companies that wouldl bring in 3,000 megawatts of power on board to the existing 2,800 megawatts.

He also reiterated the president’s call on Ghanaians to conserve power. Hon. Ibrahim Jajah also took a swipe at the NPP leadership for making unnecessary noise with the problem the country is facing as far as energy is concern.

He averred that the NPP government, during its eight years in office was unable to add even a single megawatts of energy generation capacity to the national grid when their government was faced with similar crisis, but have decided to hook on to the current crisis as their campaign message.

He asked the leadership of the NPP to provide alternatives rather than wasting police resources on demonstrations that has no reasonable justification.

Although he indicated that demonstrations are civil rights of citizens that are guaranteed by the Constitution, the rationale behind the demonstrations must be weighed in terms of its justification and purpose.

He, however, slammed the NPP Flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, for leading the ‘Won Gbo’ demonstration after government had repeatedly explained the cause and some measures it is undertaking to mitigate the situation.

The NDC Constituency Chairman also indicated that it is misplaced for the NPP to take advantage of the current power challenge and castigate the ruling NDC government that it has failed to manage the power crisis but rather, provide alternatives to the government to come out with solutions to tackle the challenges.

He said the NPP’s “won gbo” demonstration was an acknowledgement on the part of the NPP that it failed to tackle the problem head-on when they had the opportunity to rule for eight years.

“The NPP is demonstrating to Ghanaians how they themselves have failed…They had the opportunity in 2000 to 2008 to fix this economy, but they messed up” he noted and also described the recent NPP demonstration as a misplaced priority.