Mills must redefine 'father for all' promise -Aliu

(Left)Former Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, (Right)President John Evans Atta Mills

The Former Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama has charged President John Evans Atta Mills to redefine his 'Better Ghana Agenda and father for all' promises, which has rather turned to discriminate  against members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Apart from witch-hunting former Ministers, the ruling government, according to the former Vice President had scornfully deprived contractors and other NPP youth several job opportunities, within the past two years.

Alhaji Aliu Mahama is, therefore, asking President Mills to explain to Ghanaians, whether the Better Ghana Agenda and the father for all' that he promised the entire nation in the run up to the 2008 elections was to satisfy only followers of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Speaking in an interview with The Chronicle at his private residence in Tamale, during his recent visit to the Upper East and Northern Regions, the former Vice President strongly attacked the ruling NDC for collapsing businesses of some top local contractors perceived to be sympathizers of the opposition NPP, and also rendering majority of the NPP youth jobless.

According to him, the claim by the NDC government to have created jobs for the youth was nothing but political gimmick, since the government had only sacked or disengaged those youth who were employed by the past government and replaced them with NDC youth.

'The NDC government cannot sack people from office and put their party boys there and later claim that they have created jobs, because if you sack 1000 people and replace them with another 1000, the value is still the same!. I must warn that what the NDC government has done could bring about high incidence of armed robbery, prostitution and poverty,' he said.

The former Vice President recounted the series of physical attacks, assaults and chasing away of some heads of departments by the NDC foot-soldiers in the various regions, to take over those offices with impunity. At some points, he said, almost all the public toilets were also seized and taken over by the NDC youth.

All the Regional and District Coordinators of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and the Metro Mass Transport (MMT), according to Alhaji Aliu Mahama were violently chased out of offices by the ruling government and replaced with party executives of NDC.

Alhaji Aliu Mahama, also a former contractor and Chief Executive Officer of Lidra Construction Limited in the Northern Region, hinted that majority of Ghanaian contractors have become highly indebted to most Banks, suppliers and individuals, as a result of the ruling government's refusal to pay them for the various projects they had executed during the last regime.

He said the government owed some of the contractors millions of Cedis, but had not made any efforts whatsoever to settle them. 'Some of the contractors cannot even stay in their homes, because they cannot stand the frequent harassments from their creditors'.

This notwithstanding, all these affected contractors who used to employ several people in their companies had had no options than to lay all of the workers off, which he said eventually compounds the high unemployment situation of the state.

Even though the NPP government is on record to have been the first to maltreat and deny contractors and supporters of the NDC several job opportunities during their eight (8) year rule under the former President John Agyekum Kufuor, Alhaji Aliu Mahama insisted that it was still wrong for the ruling government to repeat a mistake they had vehemently condemned when in opposition. Saying, two wrongs don't make a right'.

The Former Vice President who has personally assumed the responsibility of wooing chiefs, opinion leaders and the youth of the three Northern Regions to massively rally behind Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Presidential Candidate of the NPP in the coming 2012 general elections, called on Ghanaians to deeply reflect on the astronomical increase in fuel prices, utility bills and general hardships resulting from poor management of the economy by the NDC government and vote them out of power.