Tell The Story Of How NDC Destroyed NPP’s Interventionist Programs

Even as the Akufo-Addo Administration fervidly works around the clock to improve the quality of the lives of the proverbial average working-class Ghanaian citizen, it is imperative that the Information Ministry put out a comprehensive programs review aimed at highlighting the welfare or social interventionist programs established by the erstwhile John Agyekum-Kufuor-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), which held the democratic reins of governance from 2001 to 2009, and how these programs fared under 8 years of the Mills-Mahama governments of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The key and relevant operatives of the various cabinet portfolios and their deputies and staffs need to conduct assessments of how the NDC managed the people’s business during the last two political seasons, and what has gone wrong and needs to be fixed, and the implications of such reparative measures for the general development agenda of the present New Patriotic Party government. For instance, it is common knowledge that former President John Dramani Mahama left the Kufuor-minted National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in grave arrears that threatened the very existence of this program which has provided ready access to needy citizens who, in the past, could not afford medical treatment under the Darwinian “Cash-And-Carry” policy of the National Democratic Congress, doggedly pursued by the likes of former Presidents Jerry John Rawlings, John Evans Atta-Mills and, lately, John Dramani Mahama.

The Akufo-Addo Administration needs to highlight the fact that the key operatives of the main opposition National Democratic Congress have equally generously benefited from this program, whose crafting and implementation they had derided as a veritable pipedream. Recently, the Akufo-Addo Administration had to pay billions of cedis to offset NHIS arrears bequeathed it by the Mahama regime, in order to keep the program afloat. Thus, funds that ought to have been used to further improve and expand the reach of the NHIS ended up being used to simply resuscitate it. What this means is that, at best, the NHIS has not significantly advanced from where President Kufuor left it in January 2009. This is the legacy of the Mahama/Amissah-Arthur government, marking time or developmental stasis.

It is also significant to note that the only contribution made by the NDC towards the successful administration of the NHIS was to bureaucratize it further by creating a crooked avenue to rob the Ghanaian taxpayer called the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), which ended up enabling white-collar thieves like Mr. Sylvester Mensah, the former NHIA Executive Director, divert funding meant for the improvement of the NHIS in their own wallets and personal bank accounts. Indeed, shortly before the exit of the Mahama regime, Mr. Mensah was indicted, had his bank accounts frozen and his passport confiscated.

But, of course, like all mega-scams involving the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress, Mr. Mensah was never brought to trial. He would mount an electioneering-campaign podium and before an audience of several thousand party supporters at the Accra Sports Stadium, pontifically declare that the Scheme – no pun intended, of course – whose creation the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress had contributed absolutely nothing, had been grossly mismanaged by the Kufuor-appointed administrators of the Scheme (See “NPP Mismanaged NHIS – Sylvester Mensah” Citifmonline.com 12/6/16; See also “No Going Back to ‘Cash and Carry’ – President Akufo-Addo” TheFinderOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 5/15/17).

Today, this unconscionable robber-baron has been talking about the possibility of running for President, come 2020, on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress. This goes to show you, dear reader, just how abysmally low our country has sunk, in terms of both political and moral leadership.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
June 11, 2017
E-mail: [email protected]