Why Akufo Addo’s Promises Are Not Credible & The Difference Prof Mills Brings

Thank you once again ladies and gentlemen of the media for honouring our invitation at such a short notice.

We started our series of press conferences by straightening the deliberate distortions by the NPP that it has provided free healthcare for our people and provided free education at the basic level. We moved on to expose the lie that the economy under the NPP has moved forward in leaps and bounds. At our last press conference, we dealt with NPP’s false claims that its tradition was and continues to be champions of good governance and multi party democracy.

In spite of these clear exposures, Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP have continued to peddle the same lies as they campaign from one part of the country to another.

It is bad enough that Nana Akufo Addo continues to mislead Ghanaians that all it takes to educate the school child in a public school at the basic level today, is 25 pesewas a month. It is sad enough that the NPP candidate is insulting the intelligence of suffering parents by declaring that the 25 pesewas, the payment of which sometimes delays up to two terms, caters for all the expenses guardians are making to educate their children.

It does not matter at all to Akufo Addo that about 7 pesewas of the 25 pesewas monthly capitation grant, does not reach the schools but stays at the level of the district where it is used for the organisation of sporting and cultural activities. To the NPP candidate, it does not matter at all, that out of the remaining 18 pesewas, a good chunk goes to the purchasing of washing bowls, organisation of School Management Committee meetings, repairs of furniture, windows and doors, not to talk about the portion used for schools and cluster-based in service training as well as T&T, sanitation and stationery needs of school administration.

From the above it goes without saying that out of the paltry monthly capitation grant of 25 pesewas, very little goes to offset the direct educational expenditure parents make on school children in public schools. In spite of this staggering evidence that the expenditure on the education of children continues to be largely paid for by parents, the NPP candidate and his party continue to repeat the lies about free education again and again. Now they have added a new dimension to the original distortion- they now claim that that the capitation grant is not 3 Gh cedis but 9 GH Cedis. The NPP candidate has looked on gleefully as this distortion is spread by leading members of his team and his government like his Communications Director,

Arthur Kennedy, Deputy Minister for Information, Frank Agyekum, government spokesman on social services, Amponsah Bediako and John Boadu, Youth organizer and key member of the Akufo Addo campaign team. What further evidence do we need to understand that the NPP candidate and other officials believe that the more they continue to repeat the same lies, the more the people of Ghana will start to believe the lies? The Parliamentary Hansard of Thursday, 12th June 2008, clearly exposes this deliberate falsehood. Page 586 of the above dated hansard, captures the following revealing expose by the Minister of Education, Prof Fobih. Hon. Hodogbey of the NDC had asked the following question: “Mr speaker, I would like to know- the 3 Gh cedis (capitation grant), is it for a month, a year or per term?” Here is the answer of Prof Fobih: Mr speaker, it is for the academic year.

In spite of this categorical declaration, top NPP officials continue to mislead Ghanaians on this and virtually every other issue of national life. This persistence of the NPP and its candidate to continue deliberately misleading Ghanaians, indicates the mindset of the ruling NPP- it is a mindset that believes that the ordinary people are not smart enough to see through the lies and distortions peddled by people who are highly placed. It is also a mindset that believes that truth does not matter as long as one can use lies and distortions to deceive the people to get hold of political power.

This morning, we wish to draw the attention of the media and the general public to the need to safeguard our collective faith and trust in the political establishment by speaking up against the persistent behavioural pattern of the NPP to take Ghanaians for a ride by engaging in deliberate distortions and making empty grandiose promises.

The NPP proved in the year 2000 that they have no qualms resorting to outright lies and empty promises as a way of manipulating the minds of the people to vote for them. Their pronouncements and promises, when matched against what they have delivered over the last eight years, buttress the view that the NPP lacks credibility and should not be believed. Indeed, the blatant lies they have consistently told our people should invoke in Ghanaians a sense of outrage and indignation because it amounts to insulting the intelligence of our people.

Let us now cite a few of the myriads of such empty promises and proclamations they made in the recent past.

The year 2000 manifesto of the NPP outlined the party’s plan to promote home ownership among Ghanaians- (see page 5 of NPP 2000 manifesto). The party also gave the following detail on page 20 of the same manifesto. “The NPP will ensure the modernisation and availability of urban housing. For instance, subject to the agreement of stakeholders, slums shall be replaced with apartment houses with modern conveniences, which shall be cost effective and environmentally friendly.”

Which slums in Ghana have the NPP converted into apartment houses with modern conveniences? How many housing units have they delivered to our people over the last eight years? Zero!!!!! In the name of property owning democracy, NPP officials had no problem spending billions to renovate their official bungalows, the president’s private residence, the Castle and the Peduase Lodge; they have had no qualms constructing a presidential palace worth over 600 billion cedis. Not to talk about the plush houses that have sprung up at the AU Village and other prime residential areas in Accra; but they cannot show a single completed housing unit for the average Ghanaian in eight long years.

As if this is not sad enough, Nana Akufo Addo, who has been an integral part of this “Spoilt and Selfish System” is now taking Ghanaians on a further “bus ride” by promising 50,000 houses in a year. Talk is cheap indeed!!!

The NPP in its 2000 manifesto stated emphatically that “the Afram Plains will be designed as a grain basket of Ghana.” Eight years on, the NPP government has done no such thing for the Afram plains. Ghana, which the NPP said, was unable to feed itself despite her abundant natural and human resources, is today in a worse food crisis.

In the area of rice production, the NPP promised in the year 2000 manifesto to emphasize the expansion of rice production in Ghana and the resuscitation of the Aveyime rice project. Elsewhere they also promised to cut rice importation by 30%.

After eight long years, local rice production has virtually collapsed and the rice import bill which stood at about $100 million dollars in 2000, and was at the time widely condemned by Akufo Addo and his NPP, has now crossed the $400 million threshold and still Accelerating Forward in leaps and bounds.

In addition to all this, the NPP promised to revive about 600 agro-based industries including sugar, tomato and corned beef factories. (Page 16 of Daily Graphic, Nov 24, 2000).

We have also not forgotten the following words of President Kufuor: “We shall grow what we eat, eat what we can and can what we cannot”. He also claimed that under his government “Ghana will become a leading agrobased industrial country in Africa.” (Parliamentary Hansard, Thurs, February 15, 2001.)

Despite all these many fantastic promises, Akufo Addo’s NPP has not, in eight long years, taken even a rudimentary step towards the modernisation of agriculture promised by his party. Has the NPP candidate shown any

remorse about this massive deception? No! He is now showing even more lack of respect to our people by promising not only the modernization of agriculture but the modernization of the whole nation in four years. Have the NPP and Obetsebi Lamptey finished modernizing even the capital city as they promised? What does Akufo Addo take Ghanaians for?

The people of Ghana have not so soon forgotten the year 2000 promise of the NPP to cut down the size of government. As we speak, the number has shot up to 93 not including the many special assistants and spokespersons including one that speaks solely on infrastructure- talk about jobs for the boys and the girls!

Nana Akufo Addo is now promising cocoa and other crop farmers a pension scheme. In his view, he assumes that our farmers do not remember how his party in the year 2000 took farmers and fisher folks on an “April Fool Ride” by promising the following: “The NPP government will introduce a Farmers’ and Fisherfolks Security Trust to cater for them in their times of need and in their old age.” (NPP Manifesto 2000, page 17.)

When will the NPP realise that Ghanaians are not as naive as they think? When will Akufo Addo stop insulting the intelligence of our people? Ladies and gentlemen, have any of you witnessed the modernisation and extension of the railway network the NPP promised in their 2000 manifesto? Nearly a decade of NPP rule is here but the nation has not seen even the beginning of the Railway network to the Northern regions promised in NPP Manifesto, 2000, Page 15. Not only has the NPP woefully failed to deliver on these promises- they have actually presided over the virtual collapse of the railway sector. Even though the NPP has set up a whole Ministry of Railways, they have superintended the non-functioning of the Accra Kumasi line, the virtual closure of the Accra Takoradi line; furthermore, the Kumasi Dunkwa line is also not functioning. The Achiase junction to Kade line has not just collapsed but the line has been completely dismantled and sold as scrap under NPP’s watch.

Despite this monumental failure, amounting to deception, Nana Akufo Addo is once again making the following promise: “We shall link a sound modern railway network to link the north to the south and east to the west. It will also link the nation with our neighbouring countries. (See page 52 of NPP 2008 Manifesto.)

When will NPP and nana Akufo Addo ever learn that you cannot fool all the people all the time?

The list of broken promises is endless. What is most sad is not only the fact that the NPP has so woefully failed to deliver on their promises. It is the unapologetic manner with which they just pretend they have not deceived the people and rather go on making even more outrageous promises.

As earlier explained, the NPP has not even scratched the surface when it comes to making education free at the basic level. Parents continue to incur huge expenses buying educational materials, uniforms, transporting their kids to school and back, feeding their children in school not to mention the payment of other fees/levies like exam fees and PTA levies. For instance as we speak, NDC MP for Dadekotopon, Hon Namoale has to personally bear the expense of a kindergarten child attending La Anglican school- these kindergarten kids in this public school are being asked to purchase a range of items including chalk, toilet rolls, dettol, mat etc and have an additional amount of 10 Gh cedis added to the long list of items.

Despite this staggering evidence, especially against the background that the 25 pesewas a month capitation grant barely makes any impact on the huge educational expenses of parents, Nana Akufo Addo and his party stubbornly continue to claim that they have made education free at the basic level. Now he is adding insult to injury by claiming that he will make education free at the secondary level. Indeed he initially actually added even the tertiary level. Ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about an NPP government that has not just failed to make education free at the basic level. This is a ruling party that is unable to make money available to pay the scholarships of Ghanaians students in the UK and other places. This is the same government that has ruined the fortunes of our modern language students by scrapping their traditional one year abroad because of no money. This same NPP group has not been able to make money available to pay the thesis grants of post graduate students in our universities for over a year. Specifically, at the secondary level, the NPP government caused all secondary schools in the three northern regions to remain closed for six long weeks because they could not pay the feeding grants of students. Now the NPP and Nana Akufo Addo want Ghanaians to believe that they are in a position to cough up nearly two trillion old cedis a year (2 trillion) to make education free at the senior secondary level. This figure is based on the estimated 1.4 million old cedis (spent by the average parent on an average student in a secondary school a term) multiplied by the total number of students in secondary schools, which as at last academic year, stood at about 460,000.

Nana Akufo Addo’s NPP cannot easily pay 25 pesewas monthly capitation grant; they cannot pay the feeding grant of just a few secondary schools in the three northern regions. Yet, he wants Ghanaians to believe his promise of providing about 2 trillion cedis a year to make education free at the secondary level.

“What does Nana Akufo Addo take Ghanaians for?” We ask again. The national productive capacity is on the verge of collapse because the national energy provider, VRA, is saddled with an astronomical debt which has risen to $1.2 billion. The NPP is unable to deal with this crippling debt.

Yet its candidate goes promising billions of dollars almost at every turn. $1 billion development for the north, $1 billion for the Suame magazine in Kumasi, $1 billion industrial development fund promised when he met the AGI. We have actually lost count of the quantum of billions of dollars he is promising on his campaign trail.

If he has such ability to raise all these billions of dollars, why does he not help his government to salvage the VRA now? Or does the collapse of the VRA and its attendant devastating effect on the national economy, which will, among others, deal a lethal blow to the economy of the North, the Suame Magazine, the industrial sector, the Shallot producers in Anloga etc, not matter to Akufo Addo and the NPP?

Or perhaps the NPP candidate thinks that Ghanaians have not heard his party make similar promises eight years ago? Here is a reminder of a few things they said about industrialisation and modernization of the economy- “Whereas for example, the NDC has relied almost entirely on primary commodity exports and the importation of raw materials for the industrial sector, the NPP approach will rely on creating a diversified, innovative and fully integrated resilient industrial sector where new ideas and technological innovations are used continuously for improvement of products and services.” (NPP 2000 Manifesto, page 10.) That’s not all- they also stated the following: “The essence of our industrial policy is to increase productivity of the sector in general and create a vibrant, competitive and innovative industrial sector capable of competing in a global world economy”- (Page 10, of NPP 2000 Manifesto).

Where is that globally competitive industrial sector after eight long years? Where is the promise of transforming the structure of the Ghanaian economy and “move from poverty to one modernization, high productivity, high salaries, international competitiveness and rising living standards”? (NPP Manifesto 2000, page 1).

Not only has the NPP abysmally failed to deliver on this promise but now the party’s candidate mocks Ghanaians further by promising that in four years he will transform Ghana from a third world country into a first world country like the USA, UK, France, Japan or Canada? This is a candidate who has been an MP in the Abwakwa constituency for the past 12 years; what amount of modernisation has he brought to that constituency in 12 years? We are in no doubt that even his constituents know that his promises of transforming Ghana in four years are hollow and without any merit.

Nana Akufo Addo, like his party the NPP, is a walking contradiction- he espouses one thing and does the very opposite. We will deal with Nana Akufo Addo’s ambivalence, nay, his duplicity and lack of credibility more fully in a subsequent press conference.

For now, suffice it to say, that his vain promise of for instance creating a cabinet level chief anti drug enforcement officer, will also be fully dealt with when we put the searchlight on his terrible track record when it comes to the fight against narcotic drug trafficking.

The deception and broken promises of the NPP are too numerous to deal with fully through in one press conference. We have not touched on NPP’s now abandoned policy of zero tolerance for corruption.

We have not touched on the much touted principle of affordability, under which President Kufuor described as criminal the price of petrol; under which he, Akufo Addo and others organised demonstrations about the cost of utilities and virtually all other prices in the year 2000. Obviously, with the astronomical manner in which the prices of all goods and services have experienced NPP’s kind of “Moving Forward” beyond the reach of the majority of our people, Akufo Addo and his NPP would not want us to remind them of this.

Have we mentioned their promise in the year 2000 of amending the constitution in order to make local government elections, including the election of DCEs and MCEs a partisan affair? Eight years on, they have done nothing about this but are still not feeling ashamed to promise it again in this current manifesto.

What about their claims that military people must remain in the barracks and allow the police to take full control of the security of government officials and the civil society? Need we remind the country that after removing the soldiers out of the residence of the former president, they quickly got them to start protecting President Kufuor? Are we not seeing soldiers at various security check points all over the country today? The people of Ghana have realised that when the NPP makes a promise, it hardly gets done. On the few occasions when it miraculously gets done, it is done so half heartedly that it might as well not have been done at all. The much touted NHIS, which they opposed in opposition and are now implementing in an adhoc manner and the NYEP are ample evidences of their half hearted commitment to their promises.

NPP in the year 2000 clamoured about massive unemployment especially among the youth. “Millions of youths are unemployed and demoralised,” they said. “Those who can find jobs still have to contend with low salaries and wages,” they added. (See NPP manifesto 2000, page 1)

Today, the unemployment situation among our youths is worse than in the year 2000. The numbers of children selling along the streets have multiplied. Confronted with this embarrassing situation, NPP half heartedly and in an adhoc basis, set up the NYEP without a proper and thorough planning. The low salaries, which hardly get paid on time, are very good indicators of this proverbial lack of commitment of NPP to the quality

delivery of the few promises they implement. Conscious of how badly they have bungled this youth employment promise, they are now busily using the disinformation tactics- telling the beneficiaries that the NDC intends to scrap the project when we rather promised to improve the program. It is sad that the NPP after failing to deliver on its countless promises has still, after eight years, not changed its mindset. It is obvious analysing their current range of promises that they have not only continued to distort the truth at every opportunity but have now taken the false promises to a whole new level.

This behavioural pattern of the NPP has gone a long way to destroy the faith of our people in the body politic in general and created the false impression that all politicians deliberately lie in order to come into office. It is against this background, ladies and gentlemen, that we are happy to inform you that in exactly three days, the NDC Presidential candidate, Professor John Evans Atta Mills will formally launch NDC’s 2008 manifesto. It is a manifesto that is credible and bears the stamp of Prof Mills, a man whose credibility has never been in doubt. This is the difference Prof Mills brings.

Prof Mills exudes honesty, believability and genuineness. He is a clean politician who inspires trust and confidence in the electorate. He will not mount a platform to deliberately lie to the people of Ghana. He will not do that because he is not desperate for power but for the opportunity to serve the people in truth and honesty. He will not do so because he respects the people of Ghana and knows that they are not as naive and credulous as Akufo Addo obviously thinks.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much once more for coming and may God continue to bless you.

(To obtain soft copies of this and other press statements we had issued, do please contact us on the following email address- ndcinforoom@yahoo.com or send a request through txt onto 0246580138).