Politics of Thursday, 22 May 2008

Source: GNA

NPP team embarks on campaign outreach in Wa

Wa, May 22, GNA - Mr Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, Executive Director of Danquah Foundation on Wednesday said there was no way Ghanaians could make choices without comparing records and that the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) performed better only in propaganda than the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

"The NDC has no good record to tell Ghanaians hence their phobia for comparing records. The only area in which they have performed better than the NPP is in propaganda," he said during an interaction with media personnel at Wa.

Mr Otchere-Darko and other officials of the campaign team of NPP presidential candidate Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo, were in Wa to interact with NPP activists in the Upper West Region to strategize on ways of neutralizing NDC propaganda in the region.

He asked Ghanaians to measure their level of satisfaction under the NPP to see whether the NDC could offer anything better. He said under the NPP the economy has grown from four billion dollars in 2000 to 15 billion dollars today, while credit to the private sector rose from 350 million dollars to four billion dollars during the same period.

Seven years ago, only 40,000 people had mobile phones but currently eight million Ghanaians possessed that product of development, he added. Referring to the Convention People's Party (CPP), he said any good record of Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom could not be divorced from that of the NPP since he had been a member of the government until last year when he resigned to contest the Presidential elections.

"The NPP does not wish the CPP to collapse but the NPP has to stay in power and the reasons why Nduom asked his supporters to vote for President Kufuor in 2004 are still relevant today," he added. Mr Samuel Jinapor Abdulai, Deputy Director of the Foundation said the true character of the NDC has not changed and it would be suicidal to bring them back to power.

According to him, there had been a huge propaganda by the NDC in Northern Ghana that the NPP was anti-North but the facts he noted, did not vindicate such assertions. "Elections should not be fought on trivialities but rather on issues".

He urged voters to assess the competing visions of all the candidates vying for the Presidency before voting for them, adding that Nana Akufo-Addo had the vision for the aspirations of Ghanaians.

Mr Owusu Afriyie, Northern Sector Media Coordinator of Nana Akufo-Addo's Campaign, said there cannot be any choice if there is no comparison and accused the NDC of perfecting the art of lying with statistical figures.

He said incomes and purchasing power of Ghanaians, particularly workers in the formal sector improved dramatically under the NPP than the NDC and quoted figures to back his claims.