NDC caught in web of lies

The Chairman, Communication Committee of the NPP Campaign, Dr Arthur Kobina Kennedy, has said that the opposition NDC's mode of operation towards any electoral victory lies in threats and lies about their records and those of the NPP.

Addressing the media yesterday in Accra, he stated, "Whiles they focus on telling lies about us, we will continue to tell the truth about them. But they should be reminded that negative campaigning has a limited lifespan.'

As a result of these lies, Kennedy disclosed that executive members of the National Democratic Congress now hold a press conference every week to find ways of painting the NPP black.

Members of the opposition party, including flagbearer John Atta Mills have consistently thrown out lies and half truths in the course of campaigning, a development Dr Kennedy says is inimical to the growth of Ghana"s democracy.

But while engaging in the negative campaigning, the NDC has spectacularly failed to provide any alternative measures, policies or programmes to what the NPP is implementing.

Taking it a stage further, Dr Kennedy indicated that Prof Mills claims the NPP has failed in lots of areas, including the economy, sanitation, guinea worm eradication and education 'which are false on all counts.'

Touching on the economy, he posited, 'The NDC claims that the NPP has failed and that Ghanaians are suffering, but Ghana's economy according to official statistics, has more than quadrupled to about $16.5billion (June 2008) while according to the NDC's own reckoning, Ghana's economy has at least tripled in normal GDP terms from $4 billion to over $12 billion by the end of last year.'

According to him, the significant positive change in nominal GDP in the first eight years of the NPP had been accompanied by lower inflation, lower interest rates, and lower poverty rates 'which are not a failed economy but [of] a vibrant and rapidly expanding economy.'

On sanitation and water, Dr. Kennedy pointed out that the NDC dug less than 4,000 wells but the NPP had dug more than 8,000 or twice as many as the combined PNDC and NDC period.

 'The NDC built about 11,000 public toilets and KVIPs and the NPP has built 44,000 or four times as many as they did. In addition‚ ZOOMLION was introduced during our time and it has improved the sanitation of our environment a lot', he emphasised.

He said as at September this year guinea worm cases were 464, 'the lowest ever recorded in our history', but under the NDC 4‚699 cases were recorded thus, over 4‚000 more Ghanaians suffered from guinea worm under the NDC.

Dr. Kennedy said the NPP presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, had demonstrated, over the last thirty years, enormous intellect as a skilled attorney, courageous and good leader, adding that the success of Nana Akufo-Addo as an attorney in overturning AFRC's 'kangaroo verdicts' might have led directly to the brutal murders in 1982 of three judges - Justices Adjepong, Sarkodie and Koranteng-Addow - who were involved in overturning those cases.

He asserted that Ghanaians believe that their lives had improved over the last seven years and were therefore rejecting the doom and gloom being preached by the NDC.

'The NYEP will be extended from 108,000 to 500,000, the next NPP government will strengthen Valco and the Aluminum industry to create jobs, train the youth for the jobs of tomorrow, expand frontiers of our freedom and increase the size of our police force from 25,000 to 50,000', he reiterated. See tomorrow's issue for full text of speech.