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Opinions of Tuesday, 3 April 2012

Columnist: Thompson, Kofi

Akufo-Addo: Tell Ghanaians How You Will Fund Free SHS

Nana Akufo-Addo: Tell Ghanaians How You Will Fund Free Secondary Education Now!

By: Kofi Thompson

Now that Dr. Bawumiah has been chosen as Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo's running mate, Ghanaians expect detailed information from the New Patriotic Party (NPP), showing them the exact sustainable funding source for the free secondary education policy promised by the party's presidential candidate.

Ghanaians expect the NPP to give the nation time-lines, for expected outcomes impacting living standards positively; during the ten years Nana Addo says it will take to transform the national economy.

Can the NPP tell Ghanaians, for example, at which point in the ten years the journey to economic transformation will take, the party expects ordinary people's living standards and quality of life to have improved dramatically, in practical terms?

Will the improvement in living standards and quality of life of ordinary Ghanaians during Nana Akufo-Addo's tenure, mean, for example, that at a certain point during the 10-year journey to the new NPP-paradise-on-earth, rent advance for poor quality accommodation countrywide, would have become a thing of the past?

And at that precise point, can they tell us, today, just how the NPP administration of Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo would have resolved the housing deficit Ghana now faces?

In other words, Ghanaians don't want vague verbal assurances, but actuals: funding sources for policy proposals; some examples of quality-of-life enhancing policies; time-frames for their implementation, in the 10-year journey to the economic transformation of Ghana, promised by Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo.

Above all, discerning and independent-minded Ghanaians want to know, why, if it will take 10 years to transform Ghana economically, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo and his party expect President Mills to change Ghana in four short years?

Would it not be a fair point for ordinary people to make, dear reader, that saying that the economic transformation of Ghana will take 10 years, is simply a clever political ploy to enable an NPP administration, to successfully deflect criticisms during the its tenure, should they win the December 2012 elections (God forbid)?

Alas, in the Ghana of today, no individual politician, or political party, seeking the mandate of the good people of Ghana, will be able to win power, simply by making vague and impossible-to-achieve promises.

Those days are over - which is why Ghanaians await to be told the exact funding source(s) expected to pay for the free secondary education promised by Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo.

Above all, now that the NPP's economic manager-in-chief, Dr. Bamwumia, is on board, ordinary people want, and expect, that crucial piece of information now! A word to the wise…?