Reconciliation Process Must Cover Ghana's Political History - Josiah-Aryeh

The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr Nii Armah Josiah-Aryeh, has said that unless the entire period of Ghana’s political history is taken into account, the reconciliation process will not yield the expected results.

He said “We want to see a climate where at the end of the process, each person would have had an opportunity to ventilate grievance and accommodate one another”. Dr Josiah-Aryeh was addressing a rally to mark the third anniversary celebrations of the Koforidua Polytechnic Chapter of the Tertiary Educational Institutions Network (TEIN) of NDC, at Koforidua. He accused the government of politicizing the issue by cutting out certain periods in the country’s political history and said this will not bring about true reconciliation. He said “Genuine and true reconciliation is a matter beyond politics and belong to God” and called for a second look at the entire process to ensure its success.

Dr Josiah-Aryeh observed that there are a lot of lapses in the government’s present policies which he said will not move the nation forward. He therefore prevailed on the youth not to be complacent with what is currently going on but rather hold the government to account for its stewardship since they are the custodians of the land.

The National Youth Organiser, Mr Haruna Iddrisu on his part, described the $1 billion International Financial Consortium (IFC) loan to the government as a scandalous financial transaction.

He questioned the credibility of the IFC and wondered why the Bank of Ghana should be left out in such a deal involving a colossal amount of money. He said what is beating one’s imagination is the fact that the interest rate on the loan has not been made public up to date. He said when Mr Schnieder, a member of IFC was contacted to explain the terms of the agreement on the loan, he was reluctant and stated that he would only talk to members of the government.

Mr Haruna expressed concern about certain utterances of government officials about the NDC and referred to a statement made by the President on a political platform that NPP’s 18 months in government is better than NDC’s 20 years in power. He, therefore, challenged the NPP to come out and tell the entire nation, what its government has so far achieved in the various sectors of the economy apart from building upon the gains of the NDC.