MINISTER MOCKS GHANAIANS

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Wednesday December 21, 2011
John Tia Akologu, the Minister for Information yesterday said that anybody who cannot ‘feel money in his/her pocket’ or experience the ruling National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) ‘Better Ghana Agenda’ is “either sleeping or pretending to be sleeping”.

“A lot has been done by the Mills led administration and it is only those who are pretending to be sleeping who are not seeing it. They are refusing to see.”

Taking his turn at the Meet-the-press series, Mr. Tia flanked by his two deputies - Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and Baba Jamal- outlined what can be described as a lopsided achievement of the NDC government, deferring the details until “the first quarter of next year.”

The Minister said the action year promised by President John Evans Atta Mills has been fulfilled in spite of claims by some Ghanaians particularly the opposition that nothing meaningful was done.

“This year was indeed an action-packed year. It is obvious many historical strides have been made in 2011” he said, adding that President Mills has kept his promise and everybody knows that there has been significant improvement in the scheme of affairs.

“The Ghanaian worker seems to be feeling the action year in their pockets”, he said but his comment generated murmurings from in the conference room.

He said “nurses are now jubilating because they have been migrated unto the single spine. Money is in people’s pockets but those who are pretending are refusing to acknowledge this fact.”

Mr. Tia could not outline the country’s debts stock except to say that the about 38 per cent rate was normal since the country was nowhere near the 60 per cent that would run down the economy.

He justified the high school fees being charged currently by rather shifting the blame on the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) who he said “fix school fees in consultation with the Ghana Education Service.”

On the dying textile industry, the Minister said the government was putting interventions in the cotton sector to make it thrive and also insisted that the government was supporting the poultry industry to stand on their feet despite agitation from poultry farmers that they have been neglected by the government.

He said the government the government has been able to stabilize the economy, bringing inflation to single digit and reducing interest rates to 9.1 per cent.

Mr. Tia said the IMF has given the green light for the government to access 3 billion CBN Chinese loan to facilitate the bridging of the infrastructural gap while all four convergent criteria of the West Africa Monetary Zone (WAMZ) have been met for the first time.

He said 97 per cent of public and civil servants have been migrated unto the Single Spine salary Structure (SSSS) and this has increased the government’s wage bill from GHC 1million to GHC 4million.

He said the NDC government had been able to remove about 1,200 schools under trees and executed other social intervention programmes and also said the extension of the 3-year SSS was “ill advised.”

He said “the action year is abundantly on display in the agricultural and other sectors,” and added that the government should be commended for the way it is handling the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) instead of condemning them.

Okudzeto Ablakwa who preferred to talk about the corruption perception index said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) cannot match the NDC in the area of fighting the menace of corruption.

“The 4.1 score is the highest ever. In the time of the NPP their highest score was 3.9 and it is clear we only slipped to their best performance.”

Before questions and answers, Baba Jamal warned journalists to focus on what his boss had presented and not introduce any ‘extraneous’ issues into the programme.