December polls is about Trust and Competence -Says Mac Manu

So far four major political parties namely, the People's National Convention, Convention People's Party, New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress, have launched their manifestoes for the December 2008 general elections.

Peter Mac Manu, NPP National Chairman, addressing the media yesterday at the party's headquarters, stated that the national election scheduled for December was going to be about trust and competence between the two major parties; the governing NPP and the main opposition NDC.

By December both political parties would have ruled for eight years each - NDC from 1992 to 2000 and NPP; 2000 to 2008.

"For the rest of this campaign, let the issues of policy and ability to implement them be joined,' he stressed.

The NPP national chairman spoke against the backdrop that the main opposition NDC has in its manifesto certain inaccuracies and policies and programmes which are not achievable.

The NDC manifesto stated that the growth in 2007 was 5.8% instead of 6.3%, "current national debt at the end of June was 7.8 billion Ghana cedis, and not 91trillion cedis as they claim.'

According to him, the NDC has 'stolen' the central ideas of the NPP manifesto, which include the National Health Insurance Scheme, School Feeding Programme, Capitation Grant, National Youth Employment Programme Development Fund for the northern part of the country, among others.

He said the NDC lacks original ideas and has a sense of inertia on how to solve the country's problem, saying former President Rawlings would make major decisions if the NDC was returned to power.

NDC's manifesto for 2008 election promises to fight corruption, improve upon the National Health Insurance Scheme, extend the School Feeding Programme and the Capitation Grant - all these policies and programme are on -going under the NPP administration.