NPP Development Agenda Not at the Instance of NDC

The arrogance of Mr. Fred Agbenyo, the Deputy Communications Director of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), is typical of the leadership of the party. Following the epic defeat of the NDC in the December 2016 general election, Mr. Agbenyo was reported to have said that the NDC’s movers and shakers would be looking forward to seeing the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) introduce massive development projects into the country (See “We Expect High-Rise Buildings in Zongos, Other Development from NPP – Fred Agbenyo” Ghana News Agency (GNA) / Ghanaweb.com 1/23/17).

Maybe somebody ought to remind these snooty NDC apparatchiks that the then-Candidate Akufo-Addo and his running-mate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, did not run for President and Vice-President, respectively, on the strength of the jaundiced expectations or approval of the leadership of the National Democratic Congress. Rather, the NPP flagbearer and his running-mate ran partly on the strength of the laudable record of the Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party, whose National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), originally pooh-poohed as a practical impossibility, is now being shamelessly touted by the NDC leadership as one that owes its phenomenal success to massive funding infused into the program, first, by the Mills-Mahama government and, subsequently, by the Mahama/Amissah-Arthur regime.

Likewise, whatever promises the NPP leaders made in the lead-up to Election 2016, were made directly to the members of the electorate who voted massively for the NPP and not the NDC operatives. Sulking and screaming invectives and making sarcastic remarks against the members of the Akufo-Addo Administration would do absolutely nothing to advance the cause of the NDC. Sore losers like Mr. Agbenyo would do themselves much better by learning from the neo-liberal and market-oriented policy playbook of Messrs. Akufo-Addo and Bawumia than childishly hoping and praying for the failure of the Akufo-Addo Administration, as the latter is more likely to raise the quality of Fourth-Republican governance than lower or regress the same.

What is more, even as I adumbrated in a previous article, on the question of the promise made by President Akufo-Addo to provide Senior High School (SHS) students with a free, 4-year education package, the government need not go at it all at once but at piecemeal or in incremental stages, in view of the apocalyptic and deliberate economic mess created by Nana Akufo-Addo’s immediate predecessor, Mr. John Dramani Mahama. Thus, for instance, rather than initiate a 100-pecent tuition-free policy from the get-go, the government could decide that all SHS students, during their first year, would be entitled to paying 75-percent of the tuition fees that they paid during the last academic year or 25-percent less than they are paying presently. And then pay 50-percent of their current tuition fees during their second year; and then 25-percent in their third year and zero-percent in their final year. What this means is that all final-year SHS students will go to school for free this year, while the rest of the other lower grade students pay a quarter less tuition fees in a descending order.

On the question of taxation, I know that the present government has perhaps the greatest pool of talented economists in the country than at any other time during the past 60 years, and so I would not bother to tread out of my league here. What I would like to suggest here and, to be certain, this concern has been registered for nearly two decades now, is for the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia Administration to demonstrate that, indeed, it is not only a government of listeners but that it is also a government of political pragmatists who fully appreciate the great dividends that are to be had in remarkably reducing the rate of duties, or tariffs, imposed on imported products and manufactures, including automobiles and other non-commercial-use items. This is rather painful for me to say, but when it comes to taxation, there appears to be absolutely no difference between the two major political parties.

Both the ruling New Patriotic Party (and Jesus do I love the verbal-descriptive of “ruling”) and the main opposition National Democratic Congress appear to be a Siamese twin, dangerously joined at the hip. Or is it in the head?

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