Don’t give NDC another chance — NPP

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has described the tenure of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as eight years of backpedalling, backsliding, wasted opportunities and squandered resources.

“Ghana today is worse than Ghana in 2012 and 2008; it has been eight years of backpedalling and backsliding, eight years of wasted opportunities and squandered resources,” it said at a press conference in Accra yesterday.

Speaking at the press conference, the acting General Secretary of the NPP, Mr John Boadu, said Ghanaians could not afford an NDC rule for a third consecutive term totalling 12 years.

He stated that the NDC government was borrowing money not to build but to pay debts.

National debt

He explained that today the government utilised 40Gp out of every one cedi raised from taxes to pay interest  on the national debt which stood at GH₵100 billion.

Mr Boadu stressed  that the debt was 10 times bigger than what it was just eight years ago, noting that no country had recorded such a disastrous situation over a period.of eight years.

He said the danger was that if Ghanaians left President John Mahama and the NDC in office for another four years, Ghana would be completely broke and buried in debt and workers and contractors would not get paid.

Cost of corruption

On corruption, Mr Boadu said Ghanaians should not underestimate its effects and cost on the economy.

He said when the government spent three times what it should cost to build a school block, three times as many jobs  could have been created if that expenditure had been avoided.

“Every corrupt deal costs jobs; corruption costs lives, corruption kills business, corruption arrests the development  of the youth,’’ he declared.

He explained that Ghanaians needed a leader who could be entrusted with state funds.

Spending spree

Mr Boadu said just four months to the elections in 2012, about $4 billion that was not budgeted for was taken out of state coffers and spent in a desperate attempt by President Mahama to hold on to power.

He said a similar trend was unfolding this year, as President’s wife, Mrs Lodina Mahama, travelled across the country giving away election year goodies

He said the NPP was not per se against charity work but had the right to question the timing of the First Lady’s gifts sharing expedition and the volume and cost of the gifts being shared.

 He said Ghanaians deserved to know how much was being spent and who was paying for them, at a time when there were no incubators and oxygen in hospitals and students in boarding schools were left to starve.

Campaign of insults

Mr Boadu said the President had been silent on insults on political platforms during the NDC campaign launch in Cape Coast last week where speaker after speaker found time to focus on Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the presidential candidate of NPP, and rained insults on him.

He said the NDC was not able to single out one policy initiative by Nana Akufo-Addo which the speakers could confidently criticise.

Fake memo

The NPP General Secretary said the NDC believed that its best chance of staying in power was to brand Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP as intolerant, djvisive and violent.

To that effect, he claimed the NDC had authored  a false document, claiming it to be an NPP internal memo dated May 1, 2016 and sent by a group called the Strategic Advisory Team

Mr Boadu stressed that there was no group in the NPP with that particular name, noting, however, that the party had inaugurated a strategic team on May 5, meaning that the team had not been in place before May 1.

He, therefore, accused the NDC of authoring and distributing a false memo to paint the NPP flag bearer and the party in a bad light..

He explained that it was part of the “discredited, unimaginative NDC plot” bent on portraying the NPP as not being ready for power.

Viable industries

Mr Boadu said the message of the NPP campaign hinged on its flag bearer’s vision of boosting economic activities by creating  and supporting viable industries in every geographical corner of the country.

That, he said, was based on his commitment to create a free and prosperous society of opportunities for every Ghanaian.