SONA: Sad spectacle in poetry, promises and propaganda — PPP

The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) is stunned that the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in his second State of the Nation Address, completely ignored the true state of the nation.

A statement signed by the National Secretary, Murtala Mohammed, in Accra on Tuesday said the true state of the nation was known to every Ghanaian and that no eulogy could change it.

The statement said, ‘‘the state of our nation Ghana is one where the government has completely abandoned the change agenda and adopted the laissez-faire attitude of previous regimes from 1992.’’

Macro-economic gains

According to the statement, ‘‘All the macroeconomic gains touted by the President - a phenomenon that has characterised successive governments since 1992 - are not reflective of the realities on the ground because majority of Ghanaians do not experience these economic gains. We are equally surprised the President failed to mention the state of Ghana’s health sector.’’

‘‘The health sector is one that cannot take care of its own Vice- President and that the mere fact that the President could not stick his head out on the number of jobs he has created is tacit admission of failure on the part of the government.  

‘‘Our nation is a country divided along ethnic lines where tribal bigotry is the order of day, where political parties deliberately spin innocent comment(s) in order to score points. Very unfortunate! Ghanaians voted for change, not for a continuation of the status-quo,’’ the statement said.

It queried how the government could explain the continuous rise in the prices of goods and services, and the petroleum increment in  the last two weeks, in the face of all these economic gains?  ‘‘How long can the President continue to poetically school Ghanaians on his vision without commensurate action? It is unpardonable for the President to omit oil and gas - an important commodity upon which our economy depends – from his address. Clearly, the President was trying to avoid the petroleum discourse in the media,’’ it added.

Redefine education

The President must realign the Basic Education Certification Examination (BECE) and redefine basic education to include the senior high School (SHS) level  as promised in his manifesto. Surely, the state of the current Free SHS can best be described as being ‘in limbo’,  for which the government must urgently find a permanent source of funding , if this noble idea is to be sustained like the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

It said the stark and concrete realities of hardship, pain and suffering of the ordinary Ghanaian were as glaring as the daylight and added that it was a tale of stagnation and movements in circles without progress.   

Formalising economy

The statement said the President had proven beyond reasonable doubt how alienated he was from the people and that he and his 110 ministers had elevated themselves above the people who elected them in just a year. 

‘’They must begin the process of formalising the Ghanaian economy by the issuance of the National Identification (ID) cards and synchronise all other existing identification cards in Ghana as promised to occur in the first year of the New Patrotic Party (NPP) government but they have failed to deliver on their promise, highlighting the struggle between the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the NPP as more important than the national agenda.’’

It said the bipolar phenomenon continued to define what was good and what was bad, with the problems and solutions based on which political party’s lens one was wearing.

The country, according to the statement, was stuck between two political parties whose main agenda was to win political power by any means necessary.

‘’Our purpose in a nutshell is to illustrate to the people that the real state of the nation is one of a nation in disappointment, too much talk with nothing to show for, a reality the President has chosen to ignore,’’  the statement concluded.