November 2016 Elections: NDC gurus Nervous

-Over Party’s Chances



Some senior ministers and party gurus of the ruling NDC administration are expressing worries over communication between government and the people despite the “good works” of the administration, and fear it could harm the party's chances of retaining power in the upcoming November polls.

According to the apprehensive senior government and party officials, even whilst the government is religiously fulfilling its campaign promises, delivering unprecedented infrastructural developments in the areas of health, education, water and roads among others; government messages to the citizenry leaves much to be desired.

They warned if the deplorable situation is not immediately addressed; the president and the NDC party could pay a huge political price going into the next general elections.

"The government communicators are not adequately relating to the wonderful deeds of this administration…they would rather allow the opposition to mount the high moral grounds before following them down the slippery road of tangential issues", an influential member of cabinet recently told The aL-hAJJ.

According to the senior minister who spoke to this paper on condition of anonymity, "most communicators of the party instead of doing a lot more research and where they are handicapped, consult state or government officials for information… will rather engage the opposition in ‘useless and needless’ debates that do not inure to the benefit of government and the party”.

The minister added that President Mahama is many a time compelled to “speak to some of these issues because of the void created. This government has a lot of things to campaign on…we have done a lot but our communication is not getting down to the people. I know the job of our communicators is very tedious and I must be quick to add that, they are doing their best but I think we need to up our communication with the masses.”


Sharing similar sentiment with the minister, a leading member of the NDC party (name withheld) also told The aL-hAJJ that, communicating to the people is one key problem likely to affect the Mahama-led government and added that, if the problem is not immediately checked, it could spell doom for the NDC.

“I can tell you that we’ve not done well in terms of communicating the achievements of our government. Move to any hamlet, town and cities across the country, you will find at least, some very important projects dear to the hearts of the people that this government has completed or is ongoing but success stories are not coming out very well,” he noted.

One particular area of concern for most party and NDC government officials who spoke to this paper though on strict condition of anonymity; was the quality of defense often put up by the regime’s communicators with regards to economic and financial matters.

According to one senior NDC official “firefighting” communication strategy adopted by government over all these years is doing more harm than good to the government, “we wait until the NPP make capital out of often, vile allegations before we run around to explain issues”.

Even that, the official noted “sometimes it takes us several days to respond to these allegations by which time, the damage to government would have been fatal… Bawumia has over the past few days been accusing government of diverting 250million of the Eurobond money and has also stated that, our debt stock has risen to GHC 111 billion, yet those privileged to have the information or knowledge on this subject are mute, almost 96hrs after these allegations.”

He said the inability of the Mahama government to communicate very well its achievements has given the opposition New Patriotic Party a leeway “to lie to the people of Ghana that we have borrowed so much yet we have not done anything. These NPP guys go to the extent of deceiving the people that we have shared the money we borrowed among ourselves.”

“Even members of the NPP know that the achievements of the Kufuor regime in its eight years cannot compare to this government… It was not until we published the “green book” that many people begin to see the lies that was told them by the NPP, but we need to do more…we need to change strategies to counter or perhaps, dismantle the opposition propaganda once and for all.”

An elder of the party recently confided in The aL-hAJJ how the Mahama administration is still struggling to find its bearing in the area of communication, which he said, has led to many unpardonable gaffes and embarrassment not only to the president, but the NDC as a whole.

Citing the widely discussed error-ridden Independence Day brochure as the biggest shame to have hit any government, the NDC heavyweight also expressed fear that “some of these things if not nip in the bud can cause collateral damage to our second term bid,”
“Just last week the president’s facebook page described him as late president…and that was not the first time such mistakes have occurred. We have had cause to complain about some mistakes in press statements from the flag staff house and even the president’s twitter handle. These things can cause the downfall of a government in a crucial election like what we have at hand,” he opined.

These unpardonable gaffes and the lack of commitment on the part of some government officials have compelled Radio Gold’s Corporal Babanawo to constantly sound a note of caution to the president on his program, “Good Morning Mr President.”
Corporal Babanawo is noted for warning President John Mahama to “open” his eyes wide to avert his downfall, “President Mahama yei…shine your eyes oh, if don’t remove some people around you who are not pulling their weight; they will remove you oh,” he advised the president yesterday morning on Gold Fm.