PRESS RELEASE

NANA AKUFFO ADDO IS INSINCERE

At a recent launch of his campaign a flag bearer aspirant of the NPP, Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo took a swipe at the 16 months old NDC led government and sought to create the impression that the government has failed to achieve expected results. In justifying his claim Nana Akufo-Addo, chronicled figures he sourced to the World Bank as representing the state of poverty in Ghana from 1992 to 2008. Little investigation carried out indicated that Nana Akufo-Addo was insincere with some of the figures he put out, an action reminiscent of a similar behavior on his part in 2008 where at a forum in Accra, he stated that the unemployment level in Ghana at the time was ten percent (10%). Sadly for him it turned out that there was no justifiable basis for the figure he put out as it was believed that nearly 30% of Ghanaians at the time were unemployed.

Nana Akufo-Addo’s claim of 39.5% Ghanaians lived below the poverty line in 1999, a year before the NDC (1) lost power to the NPP is debatable because figures put out by the then Government Statistician Dr. Kweku A. Twum-Baah in year 2000, gave the percentage of Ghanaians living below the poverty line as 28% based on the Ghana Living Standard Survey Three (GLSS3).

It is pertinent to note that it was around the same period (1999) that Ghana chalked tremendous success in agriculture when it was ranked third in the world after China and Jordan IN agriculture (food production).

In comparative terms therefore the 28.5% of Ghanaians below the poverty line in 2007 is no achievement to be touted as Nana Addo would want Ghanaians to believe. Besides it is mischievous and misleading on the part of Nana Addo to state that the number of Ghanaians currently below the poverty line has increased by 500,000 persons, a figure he attributed to the World Bank. This is untrue because the World Bank which he sourced his information to is yet to release any figures for 2009 more so for the year 2010. What ridicules this assertion the more is the marked improvement at the end of 2009 in food production as a result of various initiatives pursued by the Mills –led government to revamp the sector.

According to Ghana’s Agriculture Ministry, on top of the achievements were a remarkable 29 per cent increase in rice production and five per cent increase in maize production, while sorghum and millet production went up by 20 per cent each. Groundnuts and cowpea also recorded a three per cent growth rate each.

It is pertinent to note that the man who seeks to superintend over the Ghanaian people will be so insincere to consistently put out misleading figures for public consumption.

This is extremely disturbing because should in the most unlikely event such a person become President of Ghana, it will only mean one thing, the truth will never be told.

Besides is 16 months enough yardstick with which to judge a government that has a four year mandate especially when the state of affairs it inherited was a malaise one? Has Nana Addo forgotten so soon that former President Kufuor, who by close of his first four year mandate had nothing to show and told the Ghanaian people that four years was too short a period and that he needed an additional four years? Maybe Nana Addo needs some reminders except he is being hypocritical. The quotes below are the words of former President Kufuor and they are lines Nana Addo is very familiar with and agrees with. “Our four-year term is really too tight. When a person assumes power his new ministers take not less than a year to get accustomed to working with the civil service, a very complicated system. The second year is the time that the president puts his policies in place. By the third year, as you are getting to settle down you are reminded that next year is election year. In fact, in the final year hardly anybody, including ministers, works because they are all focusing on how they will be returned to power. So what time do you have?

If it were five years, you would use the first year to learn to work with your civil service, the second year to set your policies straight, the third year to manage or implement some of the policies reasonably well, the fourth year to consolidate and also do some of the things you came to do for people to see that you are really managing the country and national affairs comfortably well. So n the fifth year, if your are to campaign to be returned to power, you would have had two clear years – in the third and fourth years – to do some real work. So this is why I thought an extra year would make a difference”.

Given that there are merits in former President Kufuor’s position, it must be stated that the Mills administration has so far demonstrated it can achieve needed results in four years and will even do more in eight years.

Richard Quashigah

Signed

NDC National Propaganda Secretary