NPP has "poverty of vision" - CPP

Accra, July 14, GNA - Ghana's leaders are increasingly demonstrating they are incapable of managing the country's affairs contrary to the basic premise of African liberation won by the Convention People's Party (CPP) that "the Black man is capable of running his own affairs".

Dr Nii Moi Thompson, CPP spokesperson on Finance and Economic Affairs, expressed this view on Sunday in a radio interview. Responding to questions on the sale of Ghana Telecom (GT) shares, he said, "we have a situation where our national football team is seemingly never entrusted to a Ghanaian, our water is in the hands of the Dutch, our roads are built by the Chinese, the Presidential Palace is being built by Indians, waste by the Belgians, and our Telecom sector is now earmarked for an Anglo-American company.

The CPP Spokesperson said further that the CPP was opposed to the continuing erosion and reversal of the living standards of our people, adding, "this approach was undermining our self-confidence as a nation and a people."

He said many people saw what was going on as a grand conspiracy by developed countries to re-colonise us by taking over our strategic industries - utilities, media, telecoms, describing it as a case of "re-colonization by invitation."

Dr. Thompson said that the figures on the GT majority share sale made no sense and that GT had itself projected profit levels of US$ 11 billion over the next five years and thus it begged belief that anyone should seek to sell 70% of such a company for the reported $900million. He said the government would also be forced to make concessions including tax breaks which could total anything up to US$200 million and thus ultimately the net gain will be only $700 million.

Dr Thompson said the CPP was opposed to the sale, adding, "we have leaders who do not believe in themselves or in Ghanaians, that the NPP has a poverty of vision".

On wider economic issues, Dr Nii Moi Thompson said Ghana's growth rate looked good on paper but not real in people's lives, because the reality was that the NPP had presided over a decline in the human development needs.

He said adult literacy had declined during the NPP years, life expectancy for women which was 56 years in 1992, had risen to 69 years in 1999 but has now declined during the NPP years to 60 years. Life expectancy for a child born in 1992 was 57.5 years, rose to 63.1 years in 1999 and has declined to 58.5 years during the NPP years. "Generally our Human Development Index has declined and inequality has gone up," he said.

On the recent national honour awards Dr Thompson said we were practicing the politics of convenience rather than the politics of conviction, adding that, he could not understand the government's obsession with medals and pampered leadership, when much of our programmes are donor funded.

"The government buys executive jets at a time when 65 per cent of our agricultural budget is from donors."

Dr Thompson said many on the list deserved their award but many were also NPP awards, that at a time when the NPP's promise to build many houses has not delivered a single room, and at a time when the country was facing a social crisis with the current crime wave -increases in armed robbery, new crimes of gang rape and child kidnapping from schools- the ruling elite are awarding themselves medals and spending everything on themselves.