Vice presidential candidates thrill electorate

The vice presidential candidates of the four main political parties parties in the country engaged in what can best be described as the most exciting exchanges in the 2008 pre-elections debates.

The vice presidential hopefuls in the first ever vice presidential debate in the country's political history, answered a wide rage of questions on a wide rage of issues that are central to this year's elections.

On education, the NPP vice presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia reiterated the NPP's commitment to making senior high school education free.

“If you cost free education (at this level) and we have done it, we are looking at about a 100 and 125 million Ghana Cedis per year. Now it is very important that financing such a promise be done on a sustainable basis. The budget must be able to contain it. You don't have to go and borrow to do it, you don't have to rely on oil to do it you just have to be able to fund it through the budget on a normal and a recurrent basis,” he explained.

The former deputy governor of the Bank of Ghana said an NPP government will fund this through the growth of the economy because the GH¢125 million is just 0.7 of national income.

Improvement on the efficiency of tax collection, closure of loop holes by the revenue collection agencies, will help to generate the needed revenue to fund free education at this level.

According to him, an NPP government will not want to borrow money to finance this as that was sustainable.

Instead, he said the government will grow the economy to generate money for this purpose.

The NPP government for him, had shown its capacity to do this with its increasing of government's funding on education from 4.4 to 9.1 per cent of the total national income.

But Mr. John Mahama of the NDC, disagreed with Dr. Bawumia accusing the NPP of being in a rush to make education at the SHS level free.

For him, education at that level was already free anyway because students do not pay tuition fees and so “we must be told in concrete terms what they mean by free secondary education.”

Dr. Bawumia rebutted the claim saying technical and vocational students pay about three to four hundred Ghana Cedis which constitutes payment.

Mr. Mahama also wondered why Dr Bawumia was taking credit for phenomenal increases in government expenditure on education since the Ghana Education Trust Fund law was passed by the NDC government in 2000.

“The GETFund almost single handedly is responsible for all the infrastructural development that has taken place in the education sector over the last eight years or so.”

He said the NDC will take away the utility bills so that parents don't have to pay utility bills.

The vice presidential candidate of the CPP, Dr. Abu Sakara on his part said the CPP's concept of free education aimed to ensure that no child is left behind in education.

Free education was within the means of government, he said, stressing the need to make education free to build the human capital for the knowledge based society that Ghana wants to become.

He said the current 50 per cent pass rate of BECE was in the urban areas noting the pass rate in the rural areas was worse.

Mrs Petra Amegashie of the PNC chided Dr. Bawumia and Mr. Mahama for claiming credit for the GETFund saying the establishment of the fund was at the instance of the PNC.

She accused the NPP and the NDC of poorly implementing the GETFund project and urged Ghanaians to vote the PNC into power to make education truly free.

She lamented what she called the corrupting of the educational system.

One area that generated the most exchanges particularly between Dr. Bawumia and Mr. John Mahama was corruption.

The NDC vice presidential candidate was of the view that the most important ingredient in fighting corruption is political will and leadership.

“You can pass whatever legislation you want if you don't have the political will to implement and enforce that legislation it doesn't work. And so if you declare zero tolerance for corruption and you tend around and say corruption is as old as Adam and cannot be rooted out, you tell your people you are not ready to prosecute corruption unless they bring the evidence when you know that the people have no capacity to bring you that evidence.”

For him, it is the responsibility of the president to commission investigations into allegations of corruption which is all the people can do.

“Laws won't get up and chase corrupt people it is leadership and the will to implement those laws,” he noted.

Mr Mahama said the NDC will convert the Serious Fraud Office into an independent fraud commission and give it more autonomy to be able to prosecute its own cases.

These comments attracted quick responses from Dr. Bawunia who faulted the NDC for failing to fight corruption and inviting international assistance to deal with the problem.

He said the NPP had implemented policies aimed at fighting corruption which were working.

According to him, the flag-bearer of the NPP, Nana Akufo-Addo, had made a personal commitment to fighting corruption vigorously.

“We have passed the Whistle Blowers Act, the Public Procurement Act which (was) passed last year saved this country more that $300m and that is more than twice the cost of free secondary education, so it is working.”

He said the repeal of the Criminal Libel Law has been repealed making it possible for journalists to investigate issues and to question government.

“We would strengthen the SFO, the CHRAJ and other corruption fighting agencies, resource them. We have already increased the resources to these agencies by over 500 per cent but we also want to make the public sector more efficient in the form of reforms so that you don't always have to pay bribe to get something done,” he noted.

Dr Sakara stressed the need to fight corruption by leadership and by example.

“It is impossible to fight corruption if there are intrinsic practices which other people are party to and you are included”.

He said the issue of asset declaration must be taken seriously adding he had declared his properties as a vice presidential hopeful.

“But I think corruption is broader than just the personal wealth of the public officials alone. We have to look at the practices that are currently going at the ports and various institutions and ensure that we have people on the ground who are policing the corruption,” he explained.

He emphasized the need to make random checks and complaint processes made clear to enable people complain on the canker.

The PNC vice presidential candidate asked Ghanaians to look back at the track record of the Founding father of the PNC, Dr Hilla Limann whom she said was never charged with any corruption neither was any of his ministers.

“God (gave) us such a leader and we killed him just like we executed Jesus Christ.”

She the presidential candidate of the PNC, Dr. Edward Mahama has the qualities of Dr. Limann and will fight corruption vigorously.

Story by Malik Abass Daabu