..Kennedy Agyepong’s Hollywood Empire Housing Closed-Door Meetings

By Livingstone Pay Charlie

The desperation for political power has led the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to begin a secret research with the aim of putting out figures to deceive Ghanaians and dent the image of the NDC government as part of their strategy to win the 2012 polls by hook or by crook, The Republic has gathered.

At a secret meeting at Kennedy Agyepong’s plush Hollywood building in Madina, a suburb of Accra, research officers from various constituencies of the party discussed the way forward.

The Republic’s intelligence has uncovered that the research, in its usually NPP-style, will not involve the real processes of gathering data and analyzing it.

“There is no sample size determination and it has not been specified how data should be gathered from a variety of instruments. What they want to do is to interview some few people who will claim the Mills administration has brought hardship,” an NPP insider told this reporter. From all indications therefore, this paper can report that the NPP already knows the outcome of the research. Another source said, “the research is not scientific. If they finish and they put the findings in the public domain, you ask them the sample size, what mode of data gathering was used, the margin of error and other essential elements of polling and they won’t be able to tell you”.

The meeting at Kennedy Agyepong’s place a fortnight ago was preceded by a similar one at the Kokomlemle Headquarters of the party. One NPP research officer has confided in this reporter that the research is basically about having discussions with a small number of people in market places, lorry parks and other locations considered to be the abode of the underprivileged.

Asked whether the number will be representative of the total eligible Ghanaian voter population, the NPP research officer said the understanding reached from the meeting was that the poor people are the king makers hence whatever they say forms a formidable cross section of people’s perception about the performance of government. The Republic has picked up signals that the findings of the research will be published next year and a lot of spin is expected to be put on it. At the moment, the NPP holds that the Mills administration has done nothing good to transform Ghana’s economy.

Even though, the NDC government has been able to pay all the arrears of road contractors the NPP government engaged as well as a huge part of the TOR debt, the current administration continues to receive insults everyday from the descendants of Danquah and Busia.

The Mills administration has also paid the arrears of newly recruited teachers and nurses the NPP neglected for eight years.

Additionally, the capitation grant has been increased by 50 percent. Macro-economic figures including inflation rate are currently pegged at relatively positive latitude that businesses are able to plan well.

These are some of the benefits emanating from government’s prudent economic management, a government spokesperson said.

Looking at how the opposition NPP have become hungry for power, it is necessary that the government sharpen its communications tools in readiness for any politics of lies and deception that may soon be unleashed on Ghanaians. Failure to do that will be disastrous, because “they will have a field’s day with their lies in their radio stations and newspapers”, an NDC communications expert told this reporter, He added, “If we don’t check them, we are doomed”. In the run-up to the 2008 elections, the NPP put similar research findings into the public domain.