Opinions of Wednesday, 17 June 2020

Columnist: Raphael Kumah Abolasom

Proffering credible alternatives more important than reviewing NPP's manifesto

Raphael Kumah Abolasom Raphael Kumah Abolasom

Election is a very serious business. It is the gateway to most political offices everywhere, anywhere!

The affable Dr Bawumia held a town hall meeting about four months ago and it takes an opposition party NDC, that is not burdened or saddled with the duty of running this country four months to respond shoddily. We then do not have to be surprised why Agriculture had a negative growth rate under one of their spin doctors, Fiifi Fiave Kwetey as Agric minister.

Let me offer this advice to the NDC; it is free, it comes at no cost. The NDC should concern itself with how to collate their 2020 election results, than concern itself with NPP's manifesto. Till date, the NDC on it's own has an independent data on election 2016, It's a shame!

The fellow who was in charge of the NDC's elections and couldn't collate the election results is now their National Chairman. Can he collate their results now? That should be your worry and not the NPP manifesto!

Interestingly, the presenters at their shambolic press briefing yesterday confused vision statements with promises. If their figures or percentages were anything to go by, their comfortable lead figures in 2016 would have made them the party in government today.

You gave NADAA 14percent. What are you bringing on board??? What is your campaign message??? That is more important than any other thing at this stage of our political calendar.

It was more disappointing when Hon. Ablakwa took off his mask to say, there was no need to wear the mask simply because he was observing social distancing.

He however forgot that, Sammy Gyamfi had spoken through the-same microphone without wearing a mask! God forbid! What if Sammy had contracted the disease? Through droplets, you could equally contract it even from surfaces such as the microphone you spoke through.

These are lawmakers who are expected to show exemplary leadership, yet you defied the President's masks directives! You chose politics over life.

Lest I forget, they scored the chieftaincy sector 0%. We are are not surprised, for Akufo-Addo does not share V8 to chiefs for you to score him 100%.

May be you are not aware, Government scholarships have been decentralized, a post-graduate training for medical doctors is now free. When we had dumsor we saw a 15% tariff increment, yet what do we see today in another crisis?
We see free water, we see subsidized electricity, we've seen tax waivers, we have seen efforts to get people onto COVID-19 alleviation fund.

I would like us to see politics beyond just unmeritorious criticisms and to proffer credible alternative solutions!!! Tell us what you could do better than the current the government, maybe, just maybe, Ghanaians will reason with you.

If you would recall, the NDC's first recommendation to this COVID -19 fight, was that the government should airlift Ghanaian students from China. Italy, USA did this and the resultant effect we saw is the astronomical number of COVID-19 cases recorded.

This should give Ghanaians a clue as to how the NDC intends to lead this country! It will be based on ill advice, wrong approach to governance issues and a knee-jerk approach to management. Ghanaians deserve better.

NDC, never again!!!