Take sound decisions – MP tells Mahama

The worsening state of Ghana’s economy in the just-ended 2013 year under the Mahama-led administration, has forcefully pushed the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency, Emmanuel Agyarko, to call on the government to carefully think about its economic decisions in 2014.

Mr Agyarko said this in an interview with the media on the sidelines of the Ghana Police Programme for Community Policing Unit’s end of year activity with its stakeholders held in Accra, on December 31, 2013.

According to the MP, “Ghanaians have gone through undue hardship and sufferings in order to earn their daily bread due to mismanagement and poor economic decisions on the part of government in 2012 which crossed-over to 2013.

“It is not easy. Everybody is suffering and complaining about the economy. This year has been a difficult time for all Ghanaians,” Mr Agyarko said.

“My attribution to the suffering and hardship of Ghanaians this year is that the economy had been mismanaged in 2012 and therefore the spill-over is obvious in 2013,” he added.

The embarrassing state of the economy had even pushed the founding father of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Jerry John Rawlings, to call on President John Mahama to sack some dormant ministers from his administration who are receiving salaries for no better jobs done.

“I could not resist telling the President that some of his appointees are just not correct and good enough. Some are the best and some are okay, but I think it is important he makes better selection next time when he wants to do something about his government,” said former President Rawlings in the Upper West Region at the 26th anniversary of the annual Samanpiid in the Kusaug Traditional Area.

“When you have people who are not good enough, your government looks vulnerable. But if you have tough good people who will stand by the truth and fight corruption boldly, your government will not look vulnerable,” he told Mahama.

The Ayawaso MP could not respond with confidence if the Mahama-led administration would economically perform better in 2014.

“It doesn’t appear to me that 2014 and the coming years will be any easier. My expectations are not high at all for the coming years,” he said.

Already, former President John Agyekum Kufuor in his season’s greetings to the nation had stated that “2013 had undoubtedly been a challenging one. And many were those who saw doom in the horizon,” foretelling that “ year 2014 would be more challenging, taking into consideration the tariff increment on utility services, which would put an added strain on the already over-burdened Ghanaians.”

Meanwhile, Mr Agyarko had promised to extend the Community Policing Units to all the electoral areas within his constituency as an alternative means of ensuring security for his people.

The Director General of Public Affairs at the Tesano Police Station, Rev David Nenyi Ampah-Benin, in a speech on the occasion charged every Ghanaian to make it their responsibility of assisting the police in the fight against crimes within the country.

“The community involvement in the maintenance of law and order could also come by way of intelligence gathering, financial and logistical support and fighting crime and disorder. This is a clear attestation to the fact that maintenance of law and order cannot be left solely in the hands of the police if we are to make any way meaningful headway in the fight against crime as a country,” Rev Ampah-Benin noted.

He said the community policing concept was a strategy to making the police more effective at crime prevention and control by soliciting the support and participation of the community.