Opinions of Tuesday, 3 January 2012

Columnist: Amponsah, Stonash

Mills and the NDC are absolute ‘walking contradictions’!

Like the imperialist who first came with the Bible in the guise to save souls and preach peace, but ended up committing the most barbaric and heinous crime that world has ever known, so is the President Mills and the NDC government!
President Mills and the NDC’s infamous populism were in its apogee in the run-up to the 2008 elections. They downplayed and bastardized issues of national interest with pure lies and propaganda. The NDC made Ghanaians believe that they had the alternative means to salvage the nation from the ‘dangling depth of the dungeon’ – as they insinuated, speculated and churned out. They bared their Marxism-Leninism teeth and skewed serious issues with bogus verbosities; run riot politically, and played gallery with the intelligence of the ordinary Ghanaians.

Having assumed office, one would expect that they would sulk on the very NPP policies they rubbished with their leftist mentality, and provide their ‘bitter’ alternatives they proclaimed in winning the mandate of ordinary Ghanaian.
But three years into their administration, the Mills/Mahama led NDC government remains nothing but a mere ‘walking contraction’!

Did I not hear the NDC say that President Kuffour’s move to secure a jet for the office of the president was unpatriotic and insensitive; that it was just for the comfort of the president – an ostentatious lifestyle and misused of state resources while Ghanaians wallow in poverty? So what has even changed at all, such that, if securing a jet for the commander in-chief of the Ghana Arm forces was an abomination, securing 5 jets for his subordinates is justifiable? Hahaha. Interestingly to ‘catch’ armed robbers, and airlift citizens during flood outbreak – an astigmatic deputy minister said so.

The then candidate Mills and the NDC spitted venom when Prez Kuffour made a $20,000 soft loan available to MPs for the purchase of vehicles to facilitate their work. From their Castroite point of view, they intimated that such move was not a necessity in the life of the ordinary Ghanaians, and that there were much pressing issues to address. But what did we see when the NDC assumed power? Each MP has been given a whooping sum of $50,000 had been giving to MPs for the very same purpose – What sought of glibness is this?

When Kuffour’s administration replaced Ghana Airways with Ghana International Airline (GIA) to streamline and fine-tuned its operation to result in profit maximization, the then opposition NDC cried foul. They saw nothing good in that. Today, having taken the leadership mantel of our nation, they had the morale dexterity to liquidate the GIA without any sweat! Was that the only option available? During the infamous ‘wahala’ march by the NDC and its subsidiary CJA against the divesture of the then Ghana Telecom – the singular most courageous act by the Kuffour administration – they said Ghanaians are capable of managing their own affairs. So what happened to this mantra in the face of the GIA liquidation? This is wanton sanctimoniousness in its absurdity!

Come to think of it: Mills and the NDC who stood on platforms and wailed that petrol price at an average price of GHC 5.30 per gallon even in the face of the economic turbulence when crude oil price at the international market went as high as $147 per barrel, was too high and unacceptable. They went on to promise the people that would “drastically” reduce the price in the assumption of power. Now it stands at an average price of GHC 7.5 per gallon whiles crude oil price hovers around $107 per barrel at the international market. This is another clear case of managerial deficit within the Mills/Mahama administration.
Then again, they say utility tariffs were far over board and that the Kuffour’s administration was being insensitive to the plight of the ordinary Ghanaians. Just in year 2011, utility tariffs have been increased twice by the Mills/Mahama led NDC, for what they called ‘automatic adjustment’. So where has the much touted ‘plight’ of the Ghanaians gone? This is another pure pharisaism that simply defies rectitude.

The NDC castigated upon the presidential palace put out by the then NPP government to house the first family of the land. As usual, the NDC wore their socialist charlatanism principles and called this enviable place all sought of names including a chicken cabinet – presumably, in their mad-rush for political power without giving recourse to discerning politics, forgetting that posterity will judge them sometime someday.

Surprisingly, having been sworn in, Prez Mills ate back his own words; distanced himself from the campaign rhetoric of his handlers of transforming the over $100 million facility into a poultry farm or hospital, claiming it was a priority to build an office for the President. After a tour in the facility with ex-President Kuffour, President Mills said “this is a monumental edifice” (GTV’s 7pm News – January 5, 2009). But with the monomaniacal hatred for legacies of former President Kufuor, the NDC political party, soon on commandeering the corridors of power, dismissed any intention of taking possession of the facility – another singular cozenage act by President Mills that smacks hypocrisy and defies morality!

Words spoken can never be taken back, so you better watch what you say – says my old grandmother!

Blaming the previous NPP administration in the face of challenges has become the stock in trade of the Mills/Mahama administration. Ridiculous among them, had been the recent voodoo arithmetic analysis put out by Mahama Ayariga to point fingers at the Kuffour administration for the abysmal performance in the recent BECE results – (peacefmonline.com, November 5, 2011). This was not only unfounded, but preposterous as well. Mr. Minister, let see the Harvard in you and stop this cheap politic of curry favor!

However, staggering among these litters of blames was when President Mills during his Greater Accra tour in October 2011, went postal, blaming the Kuffour administration for the doctors’ fallout with the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) migration process – shrieking that the NPP did not leave money for its implementation (myjoyonline.com, October 12, 2011).

But having forgotten that, he is the very same person who said in the forewords of the NDC 2004 manifesto that, “Under a stable, constitutional democracy, any government which is obsessed with passing blame to its predecessors and seeing imaginary enemies at every turn can only be regarded as paranoid. And paranoia, as any psychiatrist will tell you, is a consequence of lack of self-confidence and the inability to cope with realities and challenges”.

President Mills and his party’s blame game in the face of realities and challenges contradict his own statement. Can I then conclude that the President and his cabinet have reduced themselves to paranoids (persons suffering from paranoia) and no longer fit to lead a nation like Ghana? Well, this is another phoniness of President Mills and his NDC! And I leave it for the good judgment of discerning Ghanaians.

……………to be continued……..

Amponsah Stonash

NPP Communications Team
New York.