Nana Addo 'not on top of issues' - MP hits out

Member of Parliament for Bongo in the Upper East Region Edward Abambire Bawa says President Akufo-Addo’s performance at the Tuesday’s media encounter clearly shows he is not on top of issues in the country.

He argued answers given by the President at his maiden media encounter Tuesday is a clear indications that he is not on top of issues, claiming some of those answers were untrue.

“The President was not on top of the issues because some of the issues he spoke about were blatantly untruth” he said on the newspaper review segment on TV3’s New Day Wednesday.

According to Mr Bawa, there were blatant lies and confusion in the President’s answers on issues of education, the International Monitory Fund (IMF) programme and the alleged sale of contaminated fuel to a private company by Bulk Oil Storage Transport Company Limited.

“On the issue of education, the president had come with flagship programme throughout their campaign which is the free SHS policy.

Along the line, they [NPP government] have realised that there is no policy direction for such a programme so when he was asked to clarify when it will begin and who qualifies, the President said ‘I hear that anybody who gain aggregate 6-24’ and this means he [President] is not on top of the issues” he contended.

Touching on President Akufo-Addo’s response to the question asked about the IMF programme, Mr. Bawa said “he [the President] said government was terminating the programme in [April] 2018 and then the Finance Minister comes back to say the programme will be terminated in December.

What are they telling Ghanaians?” Mr. Bawa added that “on the BOST scandal, the President said there was not law governing the sale of contaminated fuel and also transacting businesses with the NPA, but there is an NPA Act which says a ‘person shall not engage in business with NPA unless the person has been licensed by the NPA, and the President want to tell the whole world that we didn’t have a law governing the BOST?

“It means that the President was not on top of the issues because there is a law he didn’t know about…a law that was passed while he was a cabinet minister.

He was then the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice when the law was passed” he added. The legislator said the President and the NPP government cannot claim credit for the stability of the economy because the policies of the Akufo-Addo government have not started yielding results.

“The 3% VAT Flat Rate started just last week. The abolishing of taxes on spare parts was just last week so if the economy is performing well, it couldn’t have been any policies by the NPP. “All these were as a result of trend from 2016 and not their programmes and the president couldn’t have claim credit for that” he said.