NDC could split up - J.H. Mensah

The man who reportedly predicted the demise of Ghana’s main opposition, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) after its crashing defeat in 2000, is again reported to have said that the NDC could split.

To him, the big question in Ghanaian politics is whether the NDC will be able to get its act together, that it is haunted by its past to the extent “that a lot of people in the party are looking for ways to dissociate themselves and their party from some elements in that past.”

Senior Minister, John Henry Mensah told the daily Dispatch that if the NDC does not manage its affairs properly, “the party could split up, if they don’t manage it properly, people never regain confidence in them to entrust their future to them.”

“I keep saying it and people blame me for saying it but it is the truth.”

He noted that those who brought about the events of the past of the NDC and benefited from it are hanging on and using the party to try to justify themselves. “But you cannot do it, the facts of history are there, people know what happened and that is the difficulty that the NDC has to try and surmount.”

Mr. Mensah admitted that a vigorous multi-party is necessary for democracy to strive in the West African country, “so we are looking to see what happen. Whichever candidate the NDC has chosen as a flagbearer will not matter in this regard, it is whether the party can reform itself, reorient itself, and give itself a programme that makes meaning to the ordinary man.

As for criticizing the NPP government, that is their job, but that cannot cover the problem they have to resolve among themselves.”

To him, the NPP has a much easier task in 2004 because he thinks the government is doing fairly well and “when your government is doing fairly well, then you have an easier way of mapping your way forward. And we are mapping our way forward.”

On expectations in respect of the economy and politics for this year, Mr. Mensah, also MP for Sunyani said, “The first most important thing is that God blessed us with good rains 2002 and therefore we got enough food in stock for people to continue to eat reasonably well into the middle of next year. And with this good fortune, the farmers are encouraged to go back and plant some more and we all pray that the rains will be favourable. I put that first because when people talk about life, they talk about bi big things. But the most important thing is that people will be able to eat and the second thing is that they have peace.

The rains were good for food growing but perhaps not so good for filling the Volta Lake, so we got a big problem in our energy sector. The lake levels are so low that we have to start rationing power and some of the bigger consumers who are being rationed are a bit unhappy because if they don’t get as much power as they expected, they can’t run their enterprises as to the level they want.”

He said it is a pity that the country’s management of hydro resources has not been always what it should be and therefore has created the crisis, which must be resolved. “We must give ourselves time to rehabilitate the Volta Lake, both the water side and the mechanical side.”

Ghana has electricity-generating facilities in the Western Regional capital Takoradi, but also have some shortcomings. One set of plants, which are owned by the government have had mechanical problems for a long time. The second set of generators which is owned by private power producers has not got a facility to use the surplus steam which should have given us cheap power. So the country is forced to use those facilities in Takoradi very expensive to supplement the Akosombo power.

In the meantime, the government is in discussion with various interests to try and increase the power capacity.

Speaking on a wide range of issues, the Senior Minister, who is also head of the government’s economic management team said, “our budget revenue is still a bit tight and we got a big hole of debts especially at Tema Oil Refinery because people bought cheap petrol over so many years and it has created a big hole in the accounts.

The president has indicated at his annual open forum today (Tuesday) that he is resolute in taking those difficult but necessary economic measures pretty soon so that the business environment his two-year-old government has created could be maintained.

The government says it will continue to give a lot of support to agriculture as it has done these two years, “And if luck is on our side, this coming year, we will begin to make progress relative to one of the major planks in our policy which is to give more employment opportunities especially in forest development, to our youngsters.”