The South Tongu Constituency branch of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has officially launched its campaign for the 2020 general elections with a call on members and sympathizers to ensure a massive victory for the party’s presidential candidate, John Dramani Mahama, and Member of Parliament Wisdom Kobina Mensah Woyome.

Though a safe seat for the NDC since 1992, the party challenged members to work hard to garner more votes to retain it as well as ensure a John Dramani Mahama comeback on December 7, 2020.

Launching the campaign at a packed Comboni Conference Hall in Sogakope on Sunday, October 25, Member of Parliament for Ketu North and Deputy Minority Leader James Klutse Avedzi called on the party faithful and constituents to kick out the “non-performing and incompetent” New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration.

He said the current administration, which came to power on the back of many promises including the promise not to borrow, has rather saddled the country with a huge debt after borrowing some GH¢140 billion in less than four years. This, he explained, has ballooned the country’s debt stock from GH¢120 billion to some GH¢260 billion.

Mr Avedzi said the NPP’s borrowing is unprecedented because not even all the successive governments from Dr. Kwame Nkrumah to John Mahama can match the borrowing record of the Nana Addo-led government.

He said this notwithstanding, the NPP has nothing to show in terms of development.

“The Volta Region cannot count any development they claim they are doing.”

He noted that Ghanaians have come to realize that the Akufo-Addo-led government “is purely a government of family of friends where they try to appropriate resources belonging to the whole country using dubious means”.

He cited the controversial Agyapa deal to buttress his point, stressing that this and many more are the reasons the NPP must be shown the exit come December 7.

On his part, former Minister of Communications Dr. Edward Omane Boamah cautioned party supporters against ‘Skirt and Blouse’ voting.

He said the party needed to retain Mr Kobina Mensah Woyome since the incoming NDC administration needs the numbers in Parliament to approve its policies and programmes including the pledge to create one million jobs over the 4-year term.

He said a ‘Skirt and Blouse’ voting will not only hurt the NDC but also the South Tongu constituents in terms of rolling out its manifesto agenda.

The Constituency Chairman, Henry Ampah, asked party members to dissociate themselves from persons canvassing for ‘skirt and blouse’ since that was against the NDC’s constitution.

The Member of Parliament, Kobina Mensah Woyome, enumerated many infrastructural projects such as roads, health facilities, schools, water projects among others, initiated by the previous NDC government, which the NPP has not been able to match.

He emphasized the need for the constituency to retain him and also vote back the NDC into power to continue these infrastructure works, some of which have been abandoned after they lost power.

Mr Woyome has been the MP for the South Tongu Constituency since 2009. He is seeking a fourth term in Ghana’s legislature.