The main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) yesterday took on President John Mahama and his ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to the cleaners, exposing some of the subtle lies they have been telling Ghanaians ahead of the 2016 general elections.
The NPP also accused the president and his wife, Lordina Mahama, of doling out freebies to buy votes.
The party says the first lady was spending millions of Ghanaian taxpayers’ money on gifts which she was dashing out for votes, while the president was doing same – distributing outboard motors, basins, among other things, to fishermen.
Acting General Secretary of the NPP, John Boadu expressed the concerns at a press conference at the party headquarters in Accra yesterday.
He said, “The wife of the President of the Republic is going around the country with a fleet of trucks loaded with goodies, which she is sharing for votes. These run into millions of dollars.”
The NPP has therefore, called for full disclosure of who is funding the first lady’ gift-sharing expedition.
“Ghanaians deserve to know. How much is being spent? Who is paying for it? Where is the money coming from?” he asked.
“The NPP”, John Boadu said, “is all for charity work, but, Ghanaians also have the right to question the timing of the escalation of the first lady’s gift-sharing expedition and the volume and costs of the gifts being shared.”
The party reminded Ghanaians of what happened in 2012, when the NDC broke the bank, built a record 12% deficit from which the nation still hasn’t recovered.
“In 2012,” he recalled, “we saw how over the last four months to the polls, some $4 billion that was not budgeted for was taken out of state coffers and spent in a desperate and reckless attempt for Mahama to hold on to power. We all remember the stories of GYEEDA, SADA, Woyome, etc.”
Failed Plot
Mr John Boadu unearthed the NDC’s concoction of stories with the support of the National Security saying, “The NDC, who has made it a business of fabricating tags for their political opponents, believe their best chance of staying in power is to brand Akufo-Addo and NPP falsely as intolerant, divisive and violent.”
According to him, “They have authored a false document, claiming it to be an internal NPP memo, dated May 1, 2016, by a group they have called ‘Strategic Advisory Team.”
But an obviously disappointed John Boadu pointed out, “Let it be told right here, there is no group in NPP with that particular name and, if there were, we would not spell the name of our flagbearer wrongly.”
“Yes, we recently inaugurated a strategy team, which, I, John Boadu, am a member of, but it was not even in place on May 1 to write such an NDC-serving memo, which only seeks to paint NPP bad. In fact, the committee started sitting on 5th May, 2016.”
According to him, “It is all part of the discredited, unimaginative big NDC plot which says the only way they can hold on to power is to portray the NPP as ‘not ready for power.’ That is what this bogus document seeks to do.”
Managing Editor of Daily Dispatch newspaper, Ben Ephson, who many believe sits in the comfort of his small office to churn out ‘voodoo poll results,’ was equally not spared the attack. He was accused of being used to propagate some of these falsehoods, with John Boadu saying, “Our only advice to Ben Ephson, the Managing Editor of the Daily Dispatch, the paper publishing it, is this: do not allow your paper to be used for this cheap, an unintelligent piece of trash. It is beneath the reputation you seek to portray.”
The NPP has since demanded an immediate retraction and apology from the Daily Dispatch in connection with its story dated 10th August, 2016 (Wednesday edition, No: 013).
Conviction
The acting General Secretary had a message for the governing party. “Let it be known, the NDC will not succeed in trying to paint the NPP as rather intolerant. The memories of Ghanaians are not asleep. Was NDC tolerant when the president’s own loyalist and Campaign Coordinator, Kofi Adams, was suspended and thrown out of the party without a hearing for allegedly saying he would work against the re-election of the late President Mills?
“Was the NDC tolerant when in December 2004, they suspended their own General Secretary, Dr Nii Josiah Aryeh, without a hearing? Is President Mahama aware that 12 years after, Dr Aryeh is officially still under suspension? Was the NDC tolerant when threats, insults and assaults forced their Chairman, Dr Obed Asamoah, and a few others to quit the party to form their own party for the 2008 elections? Was the party tolerant when they forced out former first lady Mrs Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, to form her own party in 2012 because they were uncomfortable with her criticizing the president from within as vice chairperson of the NDC? Was the president and leader of the NDC aware of the Chronicle report that the NDC Women’s Organiser for Takoradi was recently suspended because she leaked to the press an allegation that her constituency chairman stole money which the MCE gave out to be distributed to women in the community?” he asked.
Worry
John Boadu also punched holes in the president’s speech during the NDC’s campaign launch in Cape Coast last Sunday.
He indicated, “The president made it clear to Ghanaians that there are indeed two Ghanas: the Ghana where he lives comfortably with his family, friends and cronies and the Ghana where the vast majority of the people reside – the Ghana of hardships, frustrations and hopelessness.”
Interestingly however, John Boadu noted, “He avoided talking about jobs. He avoided corruption – the one word that gets his lips to shake whenever he tries to pronounce it.”
Aside that, the NPP scribe also wondered why Mahama chose, for instance, to ignore completely the anxiety of tens of thousands of public sector workers over a deal that he struck with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which according to Mr Boadu, “would see to a mass layoff of workers in 2017 if Ghanaians make the mistake of re-electing him.”
Under Mahama, John Boadu said, “Those looking for jobs cannot find any; those who had jobs have lost them; and those with jobs are afraid of losing them. Yet, the president refuses to speak about this. He refuses to explain why when the NDC took over in 2009, the National Youth Employment Scheme had 110,000 people on its payroll, and nearly eight years down the lane, its replacement – the Youth Employment Agency – has employed less than 70,000 young people. Mahama is simply a job killer.”
SOURCE : Daily Guide
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