The 2004 flagbearer of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Dr. Edward Mahama has described the membership of the Ghana@50 as one which is partisan instead of being an all-inclusive committee. He said the anniversary is a great event, and therefore the occasion should be used as a unifying factor and the members of the committee should serve as recipe for such unity. Dr. Mahama said this in an exclusive interview with the Enquirer newspaper at his clinic in Accra recently.

The members of the committee, according to him, should have been made up of people of diverse background, to give it national character. “Such an action by the government is unnationalistic and this is where the NPP government did not do well at all,” he said. Constituting the Ghana@50 Secretariat with only supporters and sympathisers of the PP is uncalled because this would widen the already polarised nation.

With the depth of experience and sense of history that these people posses, Dr. Mahama, who is also a medical doctor by profession, said that they would have given ready and insightful information of how Ghana went through the struggle. “A broad-based committee could have also contributed to the programme preparation to reflect a national occasion and even chart a better way forward for the country”, he remarked. Commenting on the $20million which the government has voted for the celebration, the former flagbearer said that the quantum of the money is not his worry, but his problem is how it would be used judiciously to leave an indelible mark in the minds of all Ghanaians especially and the world in general.

He questioned whether the government has set up any supervisory body to monitor and inspect the work of the secretariat. To enhance governance, improve the country’s rate of development and the quality of life of the people, he suggested that Ghanaians reject the two leading political parties and vote for the PNC, to offer them what they have been yearning for over the years. Dr. Mahama said that since 1966, all the ideological plans his party advocated, have been adopted by the past and present government. They include the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the school feeding programme and the capitation grant, which the NPP government continues to boast of as some of their greatest achievements. This, Dr. Mahama said is an indication that if given the mandate to rule, Ghana’s bleak future would be turned around.