Mahama is Unfair - Dan Botwe

The General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Mr. Dan Botwe has described the PNC Leader, Dr. Mahama's attacks on the NPP last Monday as unfortunate. In an exclusive interview with The Accra Daily Mail, he said Dr. Mahama "must be bold enough to come out with the reasons why he is going to join the NDC instead of the reasons he advanced against us."

He expressed surprise at Dr. Mahama's attacks on the party "because we've never hidden the philosophy underpinning our political and economic policies."

The General Secretary said if there is one party which has been honest about where it stands in connection with political and economic issues, it is the NPP because "over fifty years ago one of our founding fathers, Dr. J.B. Danquah articulated our views on property ownership and capital which has guided us to this day. We have stated clearly in our manifesto our abiding belief in private ownership. Is it today that Dr. Mahama is seeing that we are capitalists? We make no apologies for that."

On collaboration with PNC and other parties in Election 2000, he said "we appreciate the collaboration, but in the first round we had already improved our parliamentary position from just over sixty seats which we won in Election '96 to one hundred seats, taking over thirty seats from the NDC. We won the elections on December 7, 2000. It was a great achievement and we all contested as individual parties at that stage. Our Presidential Candidate did win the first round too."

Dr. Mahama in his press statement, which was given wide coverage in the media, accused the NPP of selling off "viable companies to foreigners". For that reason, and the NPP's "wholesale implementation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank sponsored policies", he said he would like to see his party turn to the NDC as future partners to unseat the NPP from power.

Responding to that, the NPP General Secretary said, "That's illogical. NDC is known to have sold many more state-owned enterprises than any other government in our history, some under very dubious circumstances, so what is Dr. Mahama talking about? To say the least, his comments are unfortunate. If you bring down inflation, help stabilize prices, bring down interest rates, and shore up your currency, all within fifteen months of being voted into power, what does that mean? Surely Dr. Mahama knows that cannot be 'worse' than the NDC's record as he would like his supporters to believe."

The General Secretary also explained that the NPP government has passed many far reaching legislations in its 15 months, "which Dr. Mahama cannot fail to acknowledge as major achievements. Is the repeal of Criminal Libel by the NPP worse than its application by the NDC?"

On HIPC, the NPP General Secretary said this has been much discussed but the negative attacks from the critics have not been followed by any clear alternative policies from them. "The debate must be on substance not on simply 'we do not like it'."

On foreign policy, the General Secretary said, "Ghana's stand in the West Africa sub region has been enhanced with broken fences mended. It took us less than a year to convince our West Africa neighbours to accept a Ghanaian, Dr. Ibn Chambas, as the new Secretary General of ECOWAS. In Europe and America, the President has formed beneficial alliances, and much more. Dr. Mahama is being unfair to this government."

General Secretary Dan Botwe however concluded by remarking that his party is open to fair criticism and would take on board any suggestions that are compatible with its overall development planning strategies.