Opinions of Friday, 27 May 2016

Columnist: Alexander, Ayogyam

Mahama has never been innovative

Over the period that President Mahama has superintended over Ghana, no one can point to anything evolving out of his innovativeness. Everything that he claims to have done is either below the expectation of the ordinary Ghana or is an exercise in mediocrity. The president did say sometime back that building roads, schools, hospitals are simply exercise in mediocrity. Coming from this background, one can hardly point to any meaningful thing he has done. Again, what is it that he has done during his stewardship that is unprecedented and can be termed as innovativeness?

Maybe he dreams of being innovative but the challenge is that he lacks the calculated steps in bringing them to reality. Even when an innovative idea had been presented to him on a silver-platter, he woefully failed in its implementation. Clear examples are the free SHS and the northern development fund dreams he adopted from the NPP.

The reasons are myriad but a few ones can be talked about. It is clear that the NDC government “rubbished” every innovation the NPP government brought on board. This gave the ordinary Ghanaian the notion that, NDC would do something extraordinary when they win power. After winning election in 2008, Ghanaians are yet to see if the NDC really compares to the previous government in terms of introducing unprecedented policies. This means that NDC did not “cut their coat according to the size of their cloth”.

All the policies NDC initiated which could have made them a little innovative, failed in their implementation. The reason is the fact that, they are not picking up the exact needs of Ghanaians and so what they think is the need of the ordinary Ghanaian is far from reality. It is either they do not have a vibrant or efficient research team that can really touch on the pressing needs of Ghanaians. As a Ghanaian resident in Ghana, I could hear the comments made by ordinary Ghanaians during the era of free Maternal Care, Youth Employment, National Health Insurance, Free Cocoa Spraying and School Feeding Program. We are still waiting for President Mahama to do something that surpasses these innovations by the previous government. No one can write him off, because he still has some more time. My advice to our dear president is to stop talking about his mediocare developments in order to be innovative.