Fuel price hikes: Mahama is insensitive – Akufo-Addo

The presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Nana Akufo-Addo has said President John Mahama is insensitive towards Ghanaians following a 9% increment in prices of petroleum products in the midst of the ongoing crippling energy crisis.

According to him, at a time when Ghanaians are reeling from the effects of three years of ‘dumsor’ and resorting to the use of generators to produce power, a responsible government would rather ensure that the fuel which aids citizens and businesses to generate power would not receive an upward adjustment in its price.

The three-time flagbearer of the NPP believes “there is no end to the difficulties for the ordinary Ghanaian” following the upward adjustment in fuel prices.

Nana Akufo-Addo was speaking to a section of Ghanaians, NPP members and sympathisers in Köln, Germany, Saturday on the first day of his 16-day tour of some European countries.

Ghanaians, Akufo-Addo said, have had the opportunity to witness at first hand the governance and leadership styles of the NPP and NDC, and its resultant impact on their standard of living.

“When President Kufuor left office, people were speaking of our country as Africa’s success story, possessing a stable democracy and an economy on the rise. Within six years of his leaving office, Ghana has retrogressed. Ghanaians are suffering and experiencing difficulties never witnessed in our history,” Nana Addo said.

He stated that no single government in Ghana’s history has had the resources and monies that the Mahama administration has been blessed with.

Between 2001 and 2008, the total tax revenue collected by the NPP amounted to GH¢15.2 billion. In contrast, the NDC government, under John Mahama, has collected a total of GH¢62 billion in the last six years (2009-2014). Exports of gold and cocoa between 2001 and 2008 earned Ghana $16.4 billion. However under six years of NDC, these exports have earned the country $39.5 billion, in addition to the $3 billion in oil revenues and the GH¢78.7 billion worth of new loans contracted by the NDC government. Kufuor’s government received no oil revenues.

“But today, Ghana is broke and back to the IMF looking for a bailout of $1 billion. Ghanaians want change, they want to go back to the Kufuor era of progress and development. Despite all the difficulties they are facing, they have hope in the NPP,” Nana Addo said.