My honesty with Ghanaians didn't help me, I didn't think that I should fool my people – Mahama

Former President John Dramani Mahama has said his honesty with Ghanaians about the difficulties the country went through while he was president, did not help his electoral fortunes.

Speaking at a gathering in Sissala West, as part of his “Building the Ghana We Want” Tour in the Upper West region, Mr Mahama said: "I was brought up to tell the truth at all times, so, when I was president, if things were not going well, I told the people of Ghana and what we were trying to do about it".

"I think my honesty was one of the major problems I had because I didn't think that I should fool my people", the flagbearer of the main opposition National Democratic Congress observed.

He said while he is stickler for honesty, "Unfortunately, others have different intentions."

Using the current intermittent power outages to make his point, Mr Mahama said: "We know that they are shedding the load, they have a problem with generation".

"Some generation assets are down. They have a problem with paying for gas. Every day, they are shedding between 280 and 480 megawatts of power, but they will not give us a timetable because that is what Ghanaians know as dumsor, "he complained.

"We must not only hold to account the government that has gone out. We must also hold to account our own people who go wrong while we are in government, "he added.

—classfmonline