General News of Monday, 25 April 2016

Source: peacefmonline.com

Franklin Cudjoe got it all wrong - Kofi Adams

Kofi Adams, NDC National Organizer Kofi Adams, NDC National Organizer

National Organizer of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Kofi Adams has ‘rubbished’ claims by the Founding President of IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Franklin Cudjoe that the incumbent NDC government has only fulfilled 7 out of its 501 promises made.

The NDC man noted that the IMANI boss got his statistics wrong – after maintaining that the Mahama-led administration has achieved most of it promises over the years.

“There are so many developmental projects ongoing across the country so I don’t know what Franklin is saying,” he said.

Mr Cudjoe was purported to have said that the best way to evaluate the performance of the NDC government is to assess the fulfilment of assurances given prior to winning the elections in 2012.

According to him “We have been combing through the manifesto as you will recall. We found out 501 promises with only 7 of them having some form of a metric.”

Elaborating on four of the promises, Mr Cudjoe indicated that: “Single-digit inflation obviously has not materialised; an 8% GDP growth annual has not also materialised. There was a budget deficit figure also in the realm of a single-digit, which obviously has not also materialised.”

He continued: “They promised 5,000 megawatts of power, but as of July 2015, it was approximately one hundred and eighty-something, which accounts for 0.16%”.

He, however, admitted that there had been some additions to the power pool from that time till 2016, but added that he was yet to calculate and add the figure to the previous one.

To him, not even the NDC can boast of the economy’s performance as one of its best achievements.

He criticised government for inflating the cost of the renovation of the Tamale and the Kumasi Airport runways but lauded its efforts on the Ridge Hospital project.

“I do not think the Kumasi runway should cost about twenty-something million when in actual fact it should cost about three [million dollars]. The Tamale Airport should not cost $100million but about $25 million. But the Ridge Hospital was really done well; I do not think it was blown by cost,” he added.

But speaking on NEAT FM’s morning show dubbed 'Ghana Montie', Kofi Adams says the Mahama-led government will soon access its performance in the party’s manifesto – “We will bring all the details in our manifesto. We will tell our story of what we have done and what we intend doing.”

“I cannot tell the exact number of our promises fulfilled by our party, but it is more than the 7 Franklin is saying. His figure is not factual. I don’t agree with him,” he told host Kwesi Aboagye.