The NPP’s desperate campaign promises to provide almost everything “free” would be an "economic and social disaster" for Ghana because their policies threaten the quality of public and social services like schools, hospitals, pensions and policing in Ghana, the NDC UK and Ireland Chapter cautioned today.

A statement signed on behalf of the NDC UK and Ireland Chapter by the Chapter Secretary Mr Prince Kassim Alubankudi cautions Ghanaians to be wary of the NPP’s “419” campaign promises because “the last time the NPP promised something free for Ghanaian school children, they fed our children with rotten food dished out in the form of worm infested free school meals” under the school feeding programme at the time the NPP was in Government.

The statement said President John Mahama and the NDC have better plans for a "balanced and realistic approach to creating new jobs by strengthening the quality of basic education in Ghana; making basic education universally free by 2016; building good quality new kindergarten schools in order to give a brilliant start in education to all Ghanaian children; establish 10 new teacher training colleges of education; equip and upgrade all 10 polytechnics to Technical Universities; build another new university in the Eastern Region; and improve access to secondary education by building 200 new modern secondary schools alongside other policies that will create new jobs and promote economic growth and stability in Ghana.”

"The NPP approach is now exposed as an unbalanced approach that threatens to unleash both cuts in public investments and a return to the days of rotten free school meals for our children” the statement said.

Challenging the NPP to say how they will find the hundreds of millions of dollars needed for all their “419” promises, the NDC UK and Ireland Chapter added: "The NPP would be an economic disaster and a public services disaster–a disaster for schools, hospitals, pensioners and the police.”

The NDC UK and Ireland Chapter stated the NPP would have to "come clean" and explain where they would find the money to do all the free things they are deceptively promising Ghanaians. The Chapter also stated that public services, including health and education, would suffer cuts in new investments and the quality of these services will become very bad under the scale of “free” promises being given by the NPP, in the unlikely event that the NPP won power again.

“The NPP cannot be trusted with public services like education. This is because their previous policies fed Ghanaian children with rotten food and left secondary school students with no new classrooms and dormitories when they increased secondary school years from 3 to 4.

The NDC UK and Ireland Chapter is encouraging all the good people of Ghana to vote massively for President John Mahama and all the NDC parliamentary candidates for a Better Ghana.”

*Signed

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*Prince Kassim Alubankudi

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*Secretary, NDC UK and Ireland Chapter*