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Opinions of Thursday, 10 November 2011

Columnist: Asare, Noah Dugubrame

NPP is responsible for all

Politics everywhere in the world sees successors pointing accusing fingers on their predecessors for anomallies and often blaming the past government for wrong moves they made. In the first days of every government this trend is almost inevitable as the new government will find every fault of the past government to try to tell his people of how hard it is working and how badly the economy was left for it to manage.

There is also another aspect of this blame game that is also natural. The blame ends as soon as the new government passes a year or two in office. At this point it becomes weird to keep blaming a past government because at this point the electorate might have heard all the bad things blamed on the past government and will be looking forward to the new government to fix the problems. Here, it turns out to be an attempt to run away from responsibility on the side of the rulling government or incapability to handle the affairs if the rulling it keeps on blaming the past government after a year or more in office.

Again, in some cases, not only blames are mentioned but also the new government sees room to tell the public the good innitiatives left by the past government and how that has helped the affairs of the day.

In our Ghanaian politics however, blame is the only side our new governments like to focus on. Mentioning the good works of the past government can be described as an abomination. When the NPP took over from the NDC after the 2000 elections, they blamed the past government for the wreckless manner we were told the economy had been handled leading to the trillions owed in debt and our subsequent stumbling into HIPC. After some three years the government of that time mentioned about this again only to remind us of how they met trillions of debt and have been able to cancel that debt with the bold HIPC innitiative. It was at this point acceptable because a solution had been found to the problem. With HIPC, it was fixed and instead of paying debts, Ghana is receiving credits even now.

Either for inexperience or lack of ideas this President Mills led NDC has found so much delight in blaming their predecessors even after three years in office making the NPP very popular even in opposition. It is more worrying because unlike the NPP which had found a solution to the economic bankruptcy they inherited, the NDC is telling us of problems which still exist three years in their rule and they still find it convenient to blame a past government for them. Why was the government changed? Of course for alternative solution to the problems facing the people, so after three years in office one will expect that the problems identified in the first year will have been fought with new methods and probably fixed by this time. Or at least new strategies will have been made public on how those problems are being tackled.

The NPP is responsible for the BECE failures in 2011, the NPP is responsible for the doctors' strike, the NPP is responsible for the water and electricity problems, the NPP is responsible for everything. Can we also say then that the NPP is responsible for the School Feeding programme? Are they not responsible for the Single Spine Salary Structure? Can we take the credit away from them for the Oil discovery in commercial quantities? Is the NPP not responsible for our economic up grading from a Higly Indebted and Poor country to a credit worthy one? Is the NPP responsible for our football successes? Is the NPP not responsible for the innitiation of the road from Accra to Aflao? Why are the NPP not mentioned when the road networks they started are completed? Is the NPP not responsible for the metro mass transport system? Is the NPP responsible for the record passes of the SHS final exams? Can the NDC claim any credit for the Bui Dam Project? No, it is the NPP's doing. The list could go on forever.

Blaming the NPP for everything only makes Ghanaians miss the NPP government which sat in the open and allowed anybody at all including Doctor Asemfoforo to throw questions at Ex Pres. Kuffour and his ministers and answers given them promptly. The days when Ghanaians were told how the problems are being takled and not who caused them. Because if really we want to look for the people who caused our problems we can't leave out those who killed because people used peugeot 504 and later drove in freights of pajeroes, land cruisers and jaguars.

For twenty years this country was held to ransom and no one spoke without been whisked to an unknown destination. If the NDC want to be sincere to Ghanaians they should blame the one who made us go into the list of Highly Indepted and Poor countries; the NDC. Those who duped this state and left us highly poor. The first three years of the past NPP's administration was used in fighting this debt. It was a good period of time to have done many things. The NDC inheritted an economy where they don't have to fight a debt. Instead they have credit in flows from the completed HIPC innitiative and a credit worthy economy to allow them go for all manner of loans. They have set a record as the government to borrow more money in the shortest period of two years because the economy left for them was good to be presented for loans. The Oil discovered is still flowing in their time. If the NPP left problems for them as they claim they should fix it or quit. Better still they can bring the brains which solved the twenty year old problems they left in 2000 to come to their aid, because it is obvious they have not sulution to them.

I conclude by saying, if the NPP is responsible for everything, why should this current government be mentained? Let us bring them back because they have the solution.

God bless our homeland Ghana.

Noah Dugubrame Asare. Frankfurt, Germany.