Mills attacks $30 million presidential villa

The presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress for Election 2008, Professor John Atta Mills, has criticised the government for spending $30 million on a presidential villa whiles students are facing accommodation problems.

He said: “Instead of investing more on education to help reduce the burden on parents, the government is spending 30 million dollars on the construction of a presidential palace.”

Prof Mills said this at the handing over ceremony of the Tertiary Education and Institutional Network (TEIN) of the NDC at the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS) in Accra.

He therefore urged the government to inject more capital into the construction of hostels to help alleviate the accommodation problem facing students.

Prof Mills said the accommodation problem facing students could have been solved had the government used the 20 million dollars for the 50th anniversary and the money meant for the construction of presidential palace to invest in education.

Prof Mills said as a developing nation, more emphasis must be given to education and that the current educational situation in the country needed more attention from the government.

He said the NDC had learnt lessons from the recent Nigeria general elections and that his party would not accept any attempt by the government to rig the 2008 general elections.

Prof Mills said the government was arrogant due to its inability to accept criticisms in good faith and called on NDC supporters to be more vigilant in the 2008 general elections.

Dr Sekou Nkrumah, son of late President Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, said the NDC was not a violent party as being peddled by the NPP and that it was rather the Dankwa-Busia tradition that had the history of originating political violence in the country.

He said the Conventional Peoples' Party (CPP) had failed since 1992 to unite.

Dr Nkrumah said the NDC stood for social justice that should be the hallmark of Pan-Africanism and called on the electorate to vote for the NDC in 2008 election.

Mr Haruna Iddrisu, MP for Tamale South and Minority spokesperson on communication, said the NPP had been benefiting from NDC's policies.

He said the current ¢1.6 trillion and ¢3 trillion benefits from the road fund and the GET Fund respectively were some of the legacies left by the NDC to the NPP.

Mr Ato Ahwoi, a leading member of the NDC, said the current power rationing was as result of the insensitive nature of the government to the plight of ordinary Ghanaians.

Mr Ahwoi said the NPP government was the only government that had not added any megawatts to the country's power.

He said the current situation calls for measures such as importation of more emergency power plants, importation and distribution of compact fluorescent lamps to conserve about 20 percent of energy and also to ensure that the 80 megawatts of electricity generating set imported by the mining companies became operational.

Mr Saint Osei, the President of IPS TEIN, stressed the need for the youth to sacrifice for the party and called for unity among the NDC.