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25.07.2016 Headlines

Mahama Is Deceiving Ghanaians –NPP

By Ghanaian Chronicle
Mahama Is Deceiving Ghanaians –NPP
25.07.2016 LISTEN

By Pascal KafuAbotsi
([email protected])
President John DramaniMahama has come under strong public criticisms for failing to honour his promise to end dum-so and a host of other promises he made to Ghanaians.

The New Patriotic Party, which is unhappy with the development has already described the conduct of the president as a complete deception.

 In 2014, President Mahama told an assembly of Bishops and other holy men and women that he would banish darkness on the Ghanaian soil by the close of that year.

“Presiding Bishop, my brothers and sisters in Christ, the year 2015 will be one filled with fruitfulness, joy, peace, good health and development…Now this is the interesting part, it will be one in which we banish darkness from our land… and put an end to dumsor forever,” he said, drawing a loud applause from the innocent men of God, who bowed into submission, in the light of the Commander-in-Chief’s location at that time.

The President’s assurances to end the power crisis kept hitting the ears of Ghanaians since 2012. However, fast forward to 2016, the incessant power cuts that have plagued the country – a condition the ruling party has refused to take responsibility for – has touched the most sensitive part of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

In a release signed and copied to The Chronicle yesterday, its Director of Communications, Nana Akomea, while pouring out the anger of his party, made it clear that “The NPP, like many Ghanaians, is alarmed at the rampant deception of the people by President Mahama and his government.”

He said the promise the President made on the altar was in early 2015, followed by “another chest beating from President Mahama that his government had achieved the fastest mobilisation of emergency power in Ghana’s history on 25th July 2016.

Despite the presidential prophecy before God and the Bishops, and the presidential chest beatings, Ghanaians are still in Dumsor. A clear case of presidential deception of the Ghanaian people.”

It is the observation of the elephant family that Ghanaians had been hit by irregular supply of power, popularly called dumsor, in the past weeks, yet President Mahama had refused to acknowledge that, the problem was in existence.

“So this time, due to this official denial, no schedule/ time table has been given. So the dumsor regime Ghanaians suffer today is unanticipated. Several appeals from AGI and other Ghanaians for a schedule have all gone unheeded,” Nana Akomea indicated.

Deception about Electricity Tariffs
The opposition party also touched on the president’s promise to cause reductions in the killer electricity tariffs that had been imposed on Ghanaians since December of last year.

Since January 2016, the media, including social media, had been awash with complaints from citizens, commerce and industry, about the effective percentage increases, which had made cost of living unbearable and led to business closures and failures.

The government, in its response, blamed faulty meters as the possible cause and subsequently assured Ghanaians it would be fixed.

In May this year, the NPP, after it had identified the sole-sourced and hasty leasing deals in emergency power, including Ameri and Karpower, at tariff levels much higher than the market prices, as one of the contributory factors to the killer electricity tariffs imposed on Ghanaians, advised the Mahama-led administration to stop the shedding crocodile tears and face the realities of the overbilling of power consumers in the country.

The party expressed worry that: “as if these increases were not killing enough, Ghanaians have been horrified to find that the actual effective increases, as reflected in their bills, have been far in excess of the announced 70%. The increases have amounted, in many cases, to even 1000%!”

Seeing the need to come to the aid of Ghanaians, following complaints, the NPP recalled that on 4th July, the Ministry of Power and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) announced a reduction to be funded by a government subsidy of GHC300 million.

“Two days later, President Mahama announced there would be no subsidy and that the reductions would be secured  by  some “realignment ” of electricity tariff  and pricing bands…one week later, on Tuesday 12th July, the Minister for Finance restated that the expected tariff reduction  would be through a subsidy.

More deception of the Ghanaian people,” the Director of Communications stated.

Deception over Free Senior High School (SHS) Education

According to the NPP, last week, the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) – a grouping of over 300 headmasters and mistresses of public Senior High Schools in Ghana – exposed the deceptions that government had engaged in, in respect of secondary school education in Ghana.

“President Mahama in early 2015 before Parliament, proclaimed his government would begin implementing free SHS in Ghana, to start with Day SHS from the 2015/16 academic year,” the release revealed.

It said: “Come the 2015/16 academic year, out of the GES approved fees of ghc405 per year for day schools students, government is paying only GHC 118,” expressing arguing that in the matter of the free SHS policy, which it bashed the NPP over when the party brought it up as a campaign message, only for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to ‘steal’ the idea, “President Mahama’s government has chosen to deceive the Ghanaian people.”

Accounting to the people Tour
Although the NDC was clearly campaigning, the party claimed, with the tax payers’ money, the president, his communicators and foot soldiers, embarked on a country-wide tour it termed ‘Accounting to the People’, to account for the NDC’s stewardship to the people of Ghana.

For the NPP, “But wherever President Mahama has been, he had demanded  Ghanaians ”  gave him a second chance” or “vote for him” or “retain the NDC in power”, which was another clear instance of deception thrown at the people of Ghana.

“The NPP insists the rampant governance by deception should stop. The good people of Ghana deserve better. They must be told the truth,” the statement stressed.

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