NDC’s PEOPLE MATTER, YOU MATTER slogan made public

A Deputy Local Government Minister, Hon. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, has underscored the people-centered orientation of the Mills administration, stressing that as a party that believes in and espouses the ideals and principle of Social Democracy, the administration’s focus has been based on the principle that every Ghanaian matters.

Buttressing the point that the Mills administration's focus has been on the people, Hon. Afriyie Ankrah told the listening public that President Mills and his government believe that "People Matter", telling the listeners that as far as the Mills administration is concerned, "You Matter". Hon. Afriyie Ankrah stressed that the “People Matter, You Matter” orientation of the NDC and the Mills administration sets it apart from its main opponents, the NPP, whose political philosophy has always been Property Owning; a philosophy that transmogrified (with due apologies to Osei- Kyei Mensah Bonsu) into Property Grabbing as exhibited in the eight years that the NPP was in power.

He explained that the policies and programmes that the Mills administration has pursued in the last three and a half years that it has been in power bear ample testimony that President Mills and his team believe that “People Matter, You Matter”.

Hon. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah stated that the Mills-led NDC has within three years put up 1,326 six unit classroom blocks across the 170 districts of the country, representing an annual average of 442 schools- that is almost three schools in every district, whereas in eight long years the total number of six classroom unit blocks constructed by the NPP stood at 346, translating to an annual average of 43 schools compared to the 442 achieved by the NDC in three years.

Hon. Afriyie Ankrah also pointed out that in eight long years, the NPP in the area of three classroom unit blocks, put up a total of 236- an annual average of 30 three classroom units, whereas the NDC, despite the massive trillions spent on NPPs arrears and the single spine, still managed within three years to put as many as 429 schools, that is 143 schools per year against NPPs 30. Recognizing the fact that science development holds the key to the nation’s industrialization quest, the Mills-led NDC government has in the three years rehabilitated 86 Science Resource Centres across the nation with a view to attracting the students into studying science, whereas the NPP in eight long years did not rehabilitate even a single science resource centre.

Indeed, when Maxwell Kofi Jumah, a one-time Deputy Local Government Minister under the Kufuor-led NPP regime, was confronted on Adom FM with this hard fact, all he could say was to retort that “and so what”!

Clearly the importance of science and science education is lost on the NPP otherwise Maxwell Kofi Jumah would not have been so flippant in disregarding the very important rehabilitation of Science Resource Centres.

In such critical areas as internet provision for Teacher Training Colleges, provision of Teacher Staff Bungalows, Construction of 6-units Teacher's bungalows, Health Infrastructure under Rural Development;Construction of District Hospitals and the Construction of rural clinics, the NDC’s less than four-years old administration has achieved more than the NPP achieved in its entire eight years.

“Indeed, People Matter and You Matter to President Mills that is why he would continue to extend developmental projects aimed at making life easier for the people” Elvis Afriyie Ankrah stressed.