The vice-presidential nominee of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia is actually the flag bearer of his party rather than Nana Akufo-Addo, the governing National Democratic Congress’ Campaign Spokesperson, Joyce Bawa Mogtari, has said.

“…I believe that he [Dr Bawumia] is actually the flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party,” Mrs Bawa Mogtari told Prince Minkah on Class91.3FM on the Executive Breakfast Show on Tuesday 20 September while responding to some issues and accusations levelled against the government by Mr Boakye Agyarko, Policy Advisor to the opposition party’s flag bearer at a press conference the party organised on Monday 19 September.

Pressed further by the host for clarity on that particular comment, the Deputy Minister of Transport said: “… At the whole press conference yesterday, I’m sure you heard the number of times his name was mentioned, so, who are they marketing, who are they advertising, who is leading the party at this time?”

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia recently delivered a lecture on the economy at which he accused the Mahama administration of running the country down. Responding to a question about whether Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, an economist and former Governor of the Bank of Ghana, really had intended responding to the former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana’s several claims on the economy, as had circulated on social media days after the lecture, Mrs Bawa Mogtari said: “I’m sure you heard the vice president say clearly that any individual, genuine economist could have done a much better job than the flag bearer or the acting flag bearer of the NPP”.

“I don’t remember as I always say that under NPP for eight years, Ghana was actually a paradise but look around you today, look at our interventions in transportation, look at our transformation in the sea ports of Ghana, look at the transformation in our road network, look at the elevations in all the key medical facilities we have across the country, look at the new ones coming up, look at the housing infrastructure …” she pointed out in response to claims by the NPP that the Mahama administration has been a disaster and made Ghanaians poorer.

She said the NPP’s press conference on Monday was “almost personal; it was almost trying to incite Ghanaians against the establishment, almost trying to create the impression that the eight years of the NPP that we all still remember very vividly were eight years of candy and butter running through our taps.”

“These were eight years of yellow gallons of people looking for water on the highways here in Accra and in the rest of the Ghana; these were eight years of a HIPC benefit that only gave us tiny little toilets in the wrong places and you can still go round the country and look at them; this is a government at the time that benefitted largely from debt cancellation and just what did they do with all the funds that were received at the time? This is a former administration that actually received huge investment in the oil sector and you ask yourself where it all went to.

Indeed, I recall challenges with water and access to water in portions of Adentan, East Legon and what have you. All of these failed promises we lived with for eight years under NPP.

“Indeed, Ghanaians, I always say, are very discerning people. We see an opposition party that is very desperate for power, we see an opposition party that is characterised by a lot of division and disgruntlement, a lot of challenges within their own house, a party that lacks unity of purpose, a party that is just so desperate and will throw anything at anybody just because they want power,” she added.

Mrs Bawa Mogtari also denied claims that Dr Bawumia’s latest lecture got the NDC panicky thus “a hurriedly” arranged event by the party for President Mahama to present highlights of the party’s 2016 manifesto days later prior to the party’s scheduled launch of the document.

“Is this the first time Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia has delivered such a statement? … I don’t even recall the NDC noticing what was going on. … Who is panicking? I really don’t see anybody panicking.”

Parrying claims that President Mahama is running a “government of family and friends”, Mrs Bawa Mogtari said: “Indeed I do not begrudge a president whose brother is competent and loyal enough to run his Defence Ministry; of course who else would you want to run your Defence Ministry save someone who is loyal to you and will definitely protect your interest.

In this case, he was his direct blood brother, we are in a country that has seen all of this and I don’t recall people going into panic attacks and wondering whether couples serving in government, brother and sister serving in government, Members of Parliament having their brothers now as policy advisors and then you sit and address a press conference and say that President Mahama is running a “government of friends and family”.

If President Mahama also has competent and loyal relatives, why can they not serve in the administration? I mean if they are not competent that is one thing, if you are not qualified that’s another thing, if they are not members of the NDC, that is another subject matter.

I think that that whole press conference is much ado about nothing. It was rumblings and very personal attacks against President Mahama …”