Mills' record appalling; John Mahama is running from it - NPP

While the ruling National Democratic Congress is basking in the glory of the book Top 50 Achievements of the Prof. John Evans Atta Mills led Government in his first two years in office, the opposition New Patriotic Party says those so-called achievements are phantom “barefaced lies that need telescopic eyes to sight them.”

The Ministry of Information as part of efforts to trumpet the achievements of the government published a 39-page book in which it chronicles sector by sector achievements of the government.

The book is titled “Better Ghana Agenda; Top 50 achievements of the Prof. John Evans Atta Mills led Government in his first two years in office.”

Achievement number five says the “single spine salary implementation is vigorously underway.” Achievement 14 cites the expansion of the school feeding programme while 16 trumpets the elimination of schools under trees.

Achievement 18 is about the reduction in SHS duration and 29, the banning of pair-trawling in the country.

Other achievements include payment of 50 per cent of the TOR debt and the implementation of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA). The book also contains strides made in road infrastructure and an effort to complete the one-time premium policy under the National Health Insurance Scheme.

But the NPP mocks the publication as at best, a waste of the country's meager resources, a depletion of forest (for the timber converted into paper to print the book) and at worst “quarter-truths, exaggeration, deceptions and hijacking of projects undertaken by the NPP.”



Art of deception












Top 50 Achievements under President Mills in two years







At a press conference in Accra on Thursday, the General Secretary of the NPP, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie said: “So disappointing have the first two years of Prof Mills' presidency been that his own deputy - Vice President John Mahama - does not even wish to be associated with it. He is begging that we allow the president to carry the burden of liabilities alone.”

Mr. Mahama had only recently questioned the tag "Mills-Mahama" administration by some critics within his own party.

Mr. Afriyie said the so-called expansion of the school feeding programme to 230 more schools is nothing but a tacit failure by the NDC which promised in its manifesto to cover all primary schools countrywide.

He said ex-President John Kufuor secured funding and started the 100-bed Hospital with a Malaria Research Centre at Teshie near Accra but that project has been named as one of the achievements of the NDC.

He wondered how the Single Spine Salary Structure which is in its infant stages of implementation will also be touted as an achievement.

He pointed out that while the government is claiming to have banned pair-trawling in the country's waters, Mr. Afriyie, said fishers along Moree, Anomabu (in the Central region) and other fishing areas are daily mourning the activities of pair-trawlers. Their woes, he said, have been compounded by the increases in pre-mix fuel and outboard motors.

With the rate at which the government claims to be eliminating schools under trees in the country, the NPP scribe said it will take at least 30 years for the NDC to achieve its dream.

Under road construction, Mr Afriyie said “the Mills-Mahama administration unashamedly lists critical artery road construction projects which were started by the NPP and have been stalled under the NDC as some of their top 50 achievements.”

“Under Achievements 41, the NDC makes another propaganda claim that President Mills has returned to the Nungua Stool 60 per cent of the lands taken from them in the 1940. Strangely these same lands have been returned three times, first under President Kufuor in 2008, second in April 2009 and in February 2010.'

“We would like to know why President Mills is deceiving Ghanaians and trying to take credit for President Kufuor's achievements when he himself admits that his first two years have been characterized by apparent inaction?” he quizzed.

Mr. Afriyie accused the government of “perfecting the art of deception, hypocrisy, incompetence, mediocrity and propaganda than finding a formula to implementing their stated Better Ghana Agenda.”

He said 2011 which President Mills has christened the 'year of action' will undoubtedly be a year of taxes and unbridled hardship and poverty.

Story by Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana