Group of KNUST lecturers to join NPP campaign
Some lecturers of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), known as KNUST NPP Frontliners, have called on Ghanaians to rise up and support the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to win the 2016 elections.
Advertisement
According to the group, which is made up of senior members and senior staff of the university, the NPP remained the best alternative to the corrupt and visionless National Democratic Congress (NDC) whose governance had crippled the sensitive sectors of the economy and brought untold hardships to the ordinary people.
Speaking at the inauguration of the group on the university' s campus, the President of the group, Dr Kwabena Boadu, said immediately after the Supreme Court ruling on the election petition, some of them reorganised NPP sympathisers and supporters on campus.
He explained that the reorganisation was necessary because there was the need "for intellectuals to openly participate in frontline politics of this country, and it is our strongest conviction that our party has the intellectual base to execute the task".
Aims of group
Dr Boadu explained that the aim of the group was to serve as a think thank ready to serve the party to win power in 2016 and beyond and it also had a vision to be recognised as an elite group of supporters to influence policy direction, as well as serve as an interface between the party and the electorate in explaining party policies and canvassing for votes.
Education
On education, the group blamed the Mahama administration for the unprecedented falling standards of education due to the deliberate government policies such as withdrawal of teacher and nursing trainee allowances.
Dr Boadu expressed shock at the near collapse of the School Feeding Programme and made it clear that the inability of the government to solve the current energy crisis was undermining effective teaching and learning, adding that "our students’ performance are declining because there is no power available for them to learn".
He announced that the group was conducting a research into the impact of the load-shedding on the education sector and would soon publish the findings for the world to see.
Health/Energy
He described the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) as dysfunctional and a mere rhetoric and that the card had become only an identification tool for money transfer transaction.
Dr Boadu asked the government to reduce prices of petroleum products because the government must listen to the cry of the people and fulfil its promise of Better Ghana Agenda.
He said the group was conducting another research in collaboration with other experts from the energy sector into the automatic price adjustment formula and would soon expose the Mahama government about how it was shortchanging the poor and overburdening Ghanaians.
"We appeal to the EC and the Election Review Committee to listen to the call of many Ghanaians to scrap the current voters register and produce a more credible one," he said.