IEA Encounter: Mahama Was Terrific

… with an excellent delivery of great ideas

...mocks Akufo-Addo: Free SHS propagators are ‘stealers’ of the ideas of constitution drafters

By Cletus Abaare

President John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana and Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) yesterday , Thursday October 18, 2012 terrified the nation with an excellent delivery of great ideas when he met the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) to outline his vision on ‘Advancing the Better Ghana Agenda’.

President Mahama once again stated that the NPP’s free education campaign promise is not achievable now and is only being used by the NPP to win votes in the upcoming elections.

According to President Mahama, free and compulsory education for students is a constitutional requirement that no political party must lay claim to as its own invention.

Outlining his vision on advancing the "Better Ghana Agenda" at the IEA Presidential Forum on Thursday, President Mahama stated that the NDC government would ensure that more children get access to education and reduce the burden on parents by ensuring that the Ghana Education Service standardizes tuition for all secondary schools in the country.

He added that government would work to enforce the constitutional requirement on education and ensure that it progressively becomes free and not attempt to implement it now which he said would be fraught with problems.

The President promised that if the party is retained in power, it will establish another University in the Eastern Region having already established one each in the Volta and Brong Ahafo Regions.

President Mahama in a subtle reaction to Nana Addo said if ever any party deserves to be in power on account of its achievements on education, that party is the NDC.

President Mahama also stated that there will be universal access to electricity and energy for Ghanaians by 2016.

“All communities with a population above 500 are eligible to be connected to the national grid.” President Mahama said adding "as has been announced by the Volta River Authority, by the end of next month, we will end the current load management exercise that was put in place as a result of interruption of gas supply from the West African Gas Pipeline.”

“In-between now and 2016, we have two critical milestones to cross... by the end of 2013, Ghana's deficit in energy supply will be significantly minimised by the injection of more than 850 more MW into the transmission and thereby largely eliminate the need for load management.

“These will be consolidated by increasing power generation from 2,443 MW to 5000 MW by 2016 through an active partnership with the private sector and improvement in transmission equipment" President Mahama added.

He also stated that his administration will be committed to fighting corruption. He promised to make the Narcotics Control Board autonomous to make it more powerful properly fight the drug trade in the country.

President Mahama also reiterated his promise of free, fair and transparent elections. He stated that Ghana would successfully conduct the December 7 elections and urged Ghanaians not to hold any fear of violence during, before and after the elections.

President Mahama also touted on the achievements of the NDC government stating that it is the only government in the history of Ghana that has been able to sustain a single digit inflation for the longest period.

The President Mahama presentation which was rated by many political analysts as one of the best among the earlier presentation was focus on the four pillars of the NDC’s 2012 manifesto:

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