Mr Akufo Addo, NPP Presidential Candidate, former Foreign Minister, former Attorney General and Justice must be congratulated for offering his services as a public servant for the people of Ghana. He did his best by all standards but his best wasn’t good enough to improve the image of Ghana, improve upon human rights violations in the country, to bring law and order into the country, and to root out corruption. He could not even convince his narcotic peddling people (NPP) like Amoateng to stop drug trafficking, let alone ensuring that his brother in law – a known drug peddler - faced the full rigours of the law in Ghana. Akufo Addo could not provide solace for the many families who lost their sons in the Gambia, nor did he as Minister of Justice provide justice for the 126 people who were trampled to death at the Accra Sports Stadium as result of police negligence and quick resort to use of force to deal with rowdy sports spectators. Ladies and gentlemen the list is long and since this is not the reason for writing, I will simply say he failed as a public servant, made many errors in judgement, his best wasn’t good enough and posterity will judge him.
What concern me and many others are the many promises he has made to Ghanaians in a bid to continue the dismal performance of the NPP. Apparently it just came to our notice that an American, one Larry S. Gibson, a University of Maryland law professor and attorney in Baltimore has been Akufo Addo political advisor. No one will refuse such a lucrative job to go to Africa to advise a presidential candidate on how to win an election. So we take it that Akufo Addo has been told by his advisors to just keep promising and promising and promising Ghanaians and maybe that will resonate with Ghana even if he cannot fulfill his promises. After all Okwantuni Kuffour did it and who was he accountable to? Poor Ghanaians are being told to continue living in abject poverty with no electricity, no safe drinking water, no jobs, no security and no proper schools facilities. NPP doesn’t believe in mass adult education so people would understand issues and judge them every 4 years. They will rather go to them every 4 years, fool them with sheer promises and bribes. The poor people who are vulnerable, look for immediate solutions, and are therefore enticed to accept these bribes.
President Kuffour wasted state resources on recruiting Whitaker for no work done whilst a whole diplomatic staff of the Ghana Consulate in US sit unemployed and yet get paid. Does Akuffo Addo want to tell us that there isn’t any NPP sympathiser in the Diaspora who is expert in African politics? Oops let me keep quite here. I just forgot that the UP/PP/NPP uses the foreign expert in everything they do. They see the foreigner as the solution to their problems. They even used the white foreigner to destabilise our socio-political economy in the 60s – remember the Harvard Economic Advisory Group that co-opted policy making during the Busia era? They will continue asking the white foreign expert for solutions to Africa. Can someone tell the NPP that the Blackman is capable of managing his own affairs? African Problems need African solutions. What a shame!
Akuffo Addo has been told by this white foreigner to promise us the following: 1. A factory in every district in Ghana
2. University in every Region in Ghana (there will be one at New Abirem in the Eastern Region)
3. Ghana Police force to increase from 25,000 to 50,000
4. Information Technology (ICT) platforms and usage in every JSS and SSS
5. Indigenous capitalism
6. Jobs for millions of the masses of people
7. Apprenticeship and distance learning for Kaya Ye........
Any serious minded person knows that all these promises are not feasible, they are a charade. Akufo Addo is just building castles in the air and CANNOT fulfil 25% of these promises. Let us delve into them one by one. Mr. Akuffo Addo, please we are not ignorant neither are we illiterates. Thank God the CPP, immediately after independence, built schools for you and me and many others to educate ourselves so we could make informed decisions and build a prosperous and healthy nation for ourselves and the generations to come. First, since the NPP came into power they have never balanced the national budget. Every year NPP borrows 40% of money from multilateral and bilateral donors to balance the government’s annual budget. Fellow Ghanaians, please note that these top ups (40%) are not free; they are loans that must be paid. I sometimes cringe when I see NPP finance ministers especially Osafo Marfo throwing his weight about in parliament arrogantly pretending to be Ghana’s saviour when presenting NPP’s fake budget. At the appropriate time I will discuss the national budget since NPP came to power and punch holes in them to show Ghanaians the damage done to our economy by NPP.
How can you talk about increasing the police force by 25000 and not talk about fixing the existing deplorable living conditions of the police? In Techiman, Ajumako and hundreds of towns and villages, the police force is renting people’s houses as offices and housing units. Their conditions of services are very poor. I was expecting Akuffo Addo to have told us that he was going to fix their existing problems first. By his intent, he is rather going to compound the problems in the police force. By fixing their present poor living and service conditions you are boosting their morals and improving the efficiency in the police force. Rather, Akufo-Addo wants to create a police state of demoralised police who will take their frustrations on the ordinary people.
How can Akuffo Addo say he is going provide ICT in every classroom from JSS to SSS when school children attend classes under trees and in collapsed mud school buildings? Maybe, I don’t know, can someone tell me whether Ghana now uses Wireless Electricity supply? Or maybe we would be told to plug the computers into trees for electricity supply. Computers are propelled by constant uninterruptable electricity supply connected from a main source. If Akuffo Addo wants to borrow a page from our (CPP) 7-year development plan where we place education first he should let us know so we would help him. Education and reliable energy policy are an integral part of industrialisation process. That is why CPP first embarked on basic plan of industrialisation, education, electricity, infrastructure and human resource development. How can Akuffo Addo tell us that he is going to run an apprentice programs for Kaya Ye when the Kaya Ye have no education? NPP doesn’t believe in mass adult education so how can these women do distant learning? And here again where are they going to converge for classes? Does he think a Kaya Ye from say Ejuso who takes the first tro-tro to Kejetia to work will rather go to these centers whilst her kids are starving at home; whilst the kids have been sacked from school for non-payment of school fees? Thirdly most Kaya Ye are homeless- have no addresses; are drop out from JSS- need remedial classes. They sleep in kiosks and when it rains heavily they are washed away into the sea and rivers. I’m tearing as I comment on this topic. The poor people are sadly washed away after heavy rains. At what stage in their daily hectic lives are they going to attend classes? The poor, vulnerable and the disabled who constitute over 80% of our population NEED basic necessities of life – food, clothing and shelter - before you ask them to go to classes for further formal schooling. The NPP manifesto does not address any of these pressing needs of the people. CPP will rather create a comprehensive labour force development strategy to meet the current and future labour force needs of the country by addressing lifelong learning, re-skilling and up-skilling, career counselling while ensuring increased participation from all people across the nation. Here is another tale by Akuffo Addo. In the mist of lack of an effective tax system; political immaturity; high illiterate population; lack of effective oversights; lack of modern day infrastructures; corruption; nepotism; and inefficient executive, judicial and legislative systems, we should not be fooled in thinking that indigenous capitalism would work in Ghana. Our society hasn’t got the pillars for indigenous capitalism to stand on. We should not overlook the fact that when the global capitalist system failed some months ago, socialist antidotes of government intervention were employed to rescue the corrupt capitalist system around the world. The government bail-outs were acts of socialism. The global capitalist system was, and still is, in peril. I am calling on Mr. Akuffo Addo to dump his “Indigenous Capitalism” idea. Indigenous Capitalism is a failed strategy and Ghanaians don’t need that in these critical periods. Fellow Ghanaians, who is Akuffo Addo kidding? Stop dressing yourself in borrowed robes. You haven’t achieved success as Attorney general, as Foreign minister and nothing good can come from your administration. You cannot finance these promises; they are therefore hollow, worthless and meaningless. These are the reasons ladies and gentlemen.
1. With current global economic downturn/crises, who is going to finance Akuffo Addo’s 40% budget deficits?
2. If you think the current oil find in Ghana is going to be your sure bet you must be kidding. Currently oil prices have fallen below $50/barrel so please look elsewhere for some funding. One hopes NPP will not go looking for loans from 419 hustlers operating from barber shops and hair salons.
3. Employment opportunities dictate to educators the type of curriculum to develop for the transformation of a society’s economy. Educators DONT tell the employers the type of graduates they are producing so they should change the way they go about production. For instance where did computer start from? Workplace. Since then it has dictated the trend of curriculum development in schools and colleges. NPP where are your policy analysts? Didn’t you know that it is the skills needed at workplace that dictate educational policies? Therefore with this serious high unemployment rate in Ghana, education cannot in the short-term play a part in shaping our economy. The jobs are not there to absorb the unemployed. In the medium- to long-term, the government has to overhaul our educational system. We need a CPP government that will create job and education opportunities that links business with all levels of education. CPP- planned infrastructure makes this phenomenon clear in our 5 year and 7 year development plans, as well as the party’s 2008 manifesto – “New Dawn, New Vision”. Our current educational system is not geared toward making our economy robust, proactive, sustainable and prosperous in the sense that our educational institutions produce general graduates without skill sets that the employers cannot put to use. Mr Promise Akuffo Addo, where are your industrial tax revenues going to come from and how can we industrialise?
4. NPP is not a government that mobilises finances from within. Money is sitting in our economy but the government doesn’t have a clue as to how to mobilise local resources for national development. In the Brong Ahafo Region, taxes from these six main markets at Techiman, Kintampo, Nkoranza, Sunyani, Ejura and Goaso and revenues from taxes on vehicles, road usage, properties and mineral resources alone can propel the Region into a healthy and prosperous economy. Yes, this is a fact and I want someone to throw a challenge to a CPP government. Same can be said of other Regions. No wonder we go to salon shops in UK to contract 419 loans. Thank you Osafo Marfo, Mr Banker, who could not translate his successful banking pedigree into the Finance Ministry Portfolio.
5. NPP has done well in encouraging cocoa production. Cocoa production is going to increase astronomically in the next 5 years. But world demand for cocoa is going to drop from current trend. Simple demand and supply analysis tells us that when supply increases whilst demand is low, prices fall. The current crises in the global capitalist system sure forewarn us that difficult times are ahead for Ghana as we continue to rely on the export of primary products of cocoa, timber and minerals.
So how is Akuffo Addo going to finance all his promises? He simply cannot finance them and he should not be taken serious. We should therefore reject his candidacy and the entire NPP parliamentary candidates and replace them with serious minded, selfless, down to earth, respectful CPP candidates. We would do him a great service by sending him back to his village to practise indigenous capitalism on the poor villagers whom he has failed.
God Bless our homeland Ghana.
Kweku Manful Vice-Chair CPP North America
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