Prof. Mills' Responses To Jake's Letter

Dear Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey,

The Campaign Team of the NDC Presidential candidate acknowledges receipt of your Open Letter dated 3rd February 2003, addressed to Professor John E. Atta Mills. The letter was received at 5.35 p.m. yesterday February 4, 2002, after several FM stations had aired the contents of the letter and the Evening News newspaper had already carried it on its front page. It is a matter of form and practice that a letter addressed to an individual, if even an Open Letter, is first delivered to the addressee before being put in the public domain. However, in your typical style, you chose to play to the gallery by releasing it first to the press. For that reason alone, your letter does not deserve a reply.

However, suffice it to say that the leaflet in question titled "What the Fuel Price Increases will do to you", was issued by the NDC. There is nothing wrong with the leaflet nor with the particular paragraph 14 that you take objection to, unless you have deliberately chosen to misunderstand the language. We quote for you the said paragraph 14 and urge you to read it again carefully: "The fishing industry faces imminent collapse. Even with the price of pre-mix fuel at ?8,500 per gallon before the increases, fishermen were finding it hard to make ends meet. Now that the price has almost doubled to ?16,000, the Ahantas, the Fantes, the Gas and the Ewes whose livelihood depend on coastal fishing appear doomed and the industry faces extinction.

The NPP has financed a small clique of its supporters to embark on massive fish importation. To succeed in their plan, they have to kill the local fishing industry. This is the reason for the almost 100% increase in the price on pre-mix fuel". It is a fact that the livelihoods of the identified groups depend on fishing. It is also the right of the NDC to predict what is likely to happen to those groups and that industry in the light of your Government's near 100% increase in the price of pre-mix fuel. We therefore fail to see what your problem is. As to whether or not massive fish importation has been embarked on, we would simply refer you to the Daily Graphic of Saturday February 1, 2003, back page story titled "?300bn Used to import fish last year" under which Kwame Waja quotes the Minister in-charge of Fisheries, Mr. Ishmael Ashietey, as having said that "About ?300 billion was used for the importation of 1000 metric tonnes of fish last year".

In any case, we will not fall for your ploy of trying to use this to divert public attention from the real issue - that the fuel price increases have taken a heavy toll on ordinary Ghanaians whose living conditions have now become unbearable. This is the issue that demands urgent attention from the NPP Government. If ever Ghanaians will be at each other's throats as your letter fears, it will be as a result of the ethnic politics introduced by the NPP Government since assuming office on January 7, 2001, and not because of a harmless leaflet stating a geo-economic fact and drawing attention to the harmful consequences of an ill-advised policy of your Government. We are taking the liberty of copying this letter to the media, in the hope that it will receive the same prominence that your letter received.

Yours sincerely,

ROJO METTLE-NUNOO COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR (PROFESSOR ATTA-MILLS CAMPAIGN TEAM).