Former President John Mahama’s ex-advisor on governance and corruption, Daniel Batidam has expressed surprise that Ghanaians actually expected the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) to deliver on their many promises, which he described as “rhetoric”.

Mr. Batidam said the NPP under-estimated the intellect of Ghanaians with its numerous promises ahead of the 2016 polls.

The NPP, among other things, promised to build a factory in all the 216 districts of the country, allocate $1 million to each of the 275 constituency each year to support development projects, implement a free senior high school policy, build a dam in hamlets within farming communities in the three regions up north – Upper East, Upper West and Northern – amongst a raft of other things.

Mr. Batidam told Accra-based Joy FM on Tuesday, 9 October 2018, that: “To be honest with you, I don’t know why people are asking for their $1 million and one factory ... Did you really think that that was going to happen? If you did, then you deserve what you are getting…”

Mr. Batidam said he “did not, for one moment, wake up and think that any government, it doesn’t matter who it is, even if it is established by a spiritual being, is going to come down to Ghana; and in one, two, three, four years, suddenly change our condition because I know how political economy works”.