By Frank Amponsah
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has taken a swipe at the opposition NDC for continuing in their ignorance and for seeking to throw dust into the eyes of the people so that they can buy into their cheap political gimmicks.
The National Youth Organizer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Henry Nana Boakye, aka Nana B addressing a press conference yesterday at the party office also took the Communications Officer of the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi to the cleaners for deciding to throw dust into the eyes of Ghanaian with his Truth Forum.
He said “After lying about President Akufo-Addo’s visit to South Africa, one would have expected Sammy Gyamfi to learn, but no, the newly elected communications officer of NDC, has rather doubled up on his ignorance. And it was good to see Ambassador Victor Smith also present at the NDC press conference. We hope that he has returned the funds that his party founder and former Boss, says he diverted during his period of service to him.”
Nama B, who was reacting to some issues raised by Sammy Gyamfi during the NDC Truth Forum, said “listening to the NDC, what becomes clear to us is that they are suffering from deliberate ignorance and want the entire Ghanaian populace to share in this their malady. Fortunately, Ghanaians have proven time and again that we are able to see and avoid their wicked propaganda meant to keep our populace uneducated, impoverished and ignorant while they enjoy the benefits of the state whenever they are in power.”
Sammy Gyamfi claimed that the vice President has moved from the field of economics to technology, but Nana B believes such submission is a sign of an ignorant politician who is displaying poverty of thought and a complete misunderstanding of what economic management is all about.
“So in the knowledge of the NDC economic management is anything but for technology? Is there any better economy in this world that has not gone the digital way? Are they saying ensuring mobile money payments interoperability, electronic payments systems, national identification, digital property addresses, digitized land records, paperless port systems, and the others are not part of economic management? You see, if you have a party that only believes that GDP, inflation, interest rates etc are the only things to consider as economic management then we have a problem as a country. And for the information of the NDC, all the economic fundamentals such as GDP, inflation, interest rates, budget deficits, trade balances and so on have been fixed by the Dr. Bawumia led economic management team relative to what we inherited. We are doing these alongside building a formalized economy through digitization. We can say that the alternative to NPP, which is the NDC is still scary.”
Nana B also said that the NDC itself had admitted that H.E. the Vice President stated that the NPP government is on track to deliver on all of its promises. So clearly, there is no attempt to pretend that all of the promises have been achieved, stressing that Looking at the mess they left behind, evidenced by the huge deficits and other indicators, this government has done astronomically well to bring our country to where we are.
He said: “The NDC claim that the Akufo-Addo administration has failed to deliver the 1million per constituency and that in the first year nothing was done. May I take this opportunity to state that the NPP, mindful of the probability that funds could be wasted if the proper structures were not put in place decided to carefully construct a structure to ensure accountability and value for money, waited and put the structure in place before execution. As we speak, laws for all development authorities have been passed. Do we need to remind Ghanaians of how funds for the infamous Gyeeda were released hurriedly and spent wickedly, resulting in over 1 billion Ghana cedi wastage of public funds? After investigations, was it not the case that we were told it was because there were no laws and proper structures to demand accountability? What happened to the cronies and business associates of ex-President Mahama who were involved? Save Abuga Pele who was sacrificed on the altar of expediency to save the face of the administration, what happened to the rest?”
He also said every constituency can boast of at least three (3) of these projects including Warehouse as part of 1 District 1 warehouse project, One village one Dam projects, Community based water systems and 10-seater institutional toilets facilities adding that If indeed the policy was to ensure bottom up approach to development, then they can say, IPEP is achieving its purpose on delivering on the basic needs of the people.
He mentioned that the NDC inherited a total public debt of 8.9 billion from President Kuffour, increased it to 122.3 billion (an increase of about 114 billion cedis), increased our debt to gdp ratio from 32% to 73.1% and reduced our growth rate from 8.5% to 3.7% but the NPP has reduced the debt to gdp ratio from 73% to 57% and grown our economy from 3.7% to 8.1%. So you see, we have borrowed less, reduced our debt service burden and enhanced the economy more than the NDC.
Nana Bo averred that after overseeing the execution of fraudulent and evil malpractices that was going to ensure that over 1.2 million Ghanaians were going to lose their life savings, they shamelessly are shouting from the rooftops that our attempts to correct the wrongs are leading to a reduction in the rate growth.
“They are unrepentant in their outlook. They have no remorse for the mess they so mercilessly created. How sinister can a political party be? You will recall that, in 2015, the Bank of Ghana did an Asset quality review which revealed the imminent closed down of a number of banks in this country due to deficiencies in corporate governance. They now unscrupulously are seeking to say that this government is collapsing indigenous banks. Nothing can be further from the truth. What is clear is that the current leadership of the bank of Ghana is determined to help genuine local banks who follow the rules to survive. This is the only way we can build a strong and resilient banking sector that can support our agenda for growth and jobs.”