NDC: Why Ghana shouldn't trust Akufo-Addo and NPP

The National Democratic Congress, NDC, has charged the ruling New Patriotic Party of sitting on too many failed promises the party made since 2000 while it desperately sought power.

And while Ghanaians wait eternally for the promises to materialize, the party, taking the populace for granted, is out with even more lofty promises it is not likely to keep, given its history.

The NDC therefore says the electorate should not listen to the many new promises the NPP and its presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo are making because they are not committed to them.

At a press conference held this morning at the NDC national headquarters as part of its Setting The Records Straight agenda, Fiifi Kwetey, NDC Propaganda Secretary, said the NPP's recently launched manifesto contains repeated promises from its 2000 manifesto, as well as several promises the party made Ghanaians in its near eight-year rule but has reneged on implementation.

Flanked by party stalwarts including Dr. Ekwow Spio Garbrah, Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation and businessman Eddie Annan, Fiifi Kwetey said apart from the failed promises, the NPP has also resorted to telling and repeating lies, an exercise the party hoped Ghanaians would buy into. “This persistence of the NPP and its candidate to continue deliberately misleading Ghanaians, indicates the mind set of the ruling NPP- it is a mindset that believes that the ordinary people are not smart enough to see through the lies and distortions peddled by people who are highly placed. It is also a mindset that believes that truth does not matter as long as one can use lies and distortions to deceive the people to get hold of political power.”

The failed promises, according to Fifi, include turning the Afram Plains into the grain basket of Ghana; ensuring the modernisation and availability of urban housing, under which programme the NPP said it would replace slums with apartment houses with modern conveniences.

“In the area of rice production, the NPP promised in the year 2000 manifesto to emphasize the expansion of rice production in Ghana and the resuscitation of the Aveyime rice project. Elsewhere they also promised to cut rice importation by 30%.

“After eight long years, local rice production has virtually collapsed and the rice import bill which stood at about $100 million dollars in 2000, and was at the time widely condemned by Akufo-Addo and his NPP, has now crossed the $400 million threshold and still Accelerating Forward in leaps and bounds.

“In addition to all this, the NPP promised to revive about 600 agro-based industries including sugar, tomato and corned beef factories. (Page 16 of Daily Graphic, Nov 24, 2000).

“We have also not forgotten the following words of President Kufuor: "We shall grow what we eat, eat what we can and can what we cannot". He also claimed that under his government "Ghana will become a leading agro-based industrial country in Africa." (Parliamentary Hansard, Thurs, February 15, 2001.)”

The NDC said “Not only has the NPP abysmally failed to deliver on this promise but now the party's candidate mocks Ghanaians further by promising that in four years he will transform Ghana from a third world country into a first world country like the USA, UK, France, Japan or Canada?”

Story by Isaac Yeboah