NDC Caught Pants Down

Unfulfilled Promises! President John Mahama

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Accra, Wednesday October 25, 2012

THE RULING National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) penchant for touting overrated development projects is beginning to catch up with them according to the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

A classic case in point is the distribution of free exercise books to school children which the NDC claimed it had been doing since it assumed office in January 2009.

When he took his turn at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) encounter with presidential aspirants – a platform the NDC vowed never to use - President John Mahama said "We have also distributed 43 million [free] exercise books in 4 years.”

However on page 15 of the NDC’s own manifesto launched in Ho in the Volta region on October 4, the party which touts itself as social democrats but behave more or less like capitalists said “Over 40 million exercise books per year have been distributed to about 4.8m pupils nationwide."

This means that per the NDC’s calculation, they seem to have either distributed 160 million free textbooks or 43 million and the party cannot be factual about the issues.

Monday on Joy Fm when Mahama Ayariga, a Deputy Minister of Education was asked about the discrepancies in the figures, he said he was in Bawku on the campaign trail and did not know that he would be called upon to explain issues.

He then said he could offer some explanation and went ahead to claim that some of the exercise books were still in the warehouse in spite of the party’s claim that the book had fully been distributed.

“People come to me complaining about exercise books and I had to ask the Municipal Director of Education in Bawku how come it was not distributed. He told me he was going to ensure that the books are distributed,” Mr. Ayariga said.

When he was asked to speak specifically on the number of books distributed so far, Mr. Ayariga said “you have to contact the Director of Logistics at the Ghana Education Service.”

But Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, Executive Director of the Danquah Institute and a leading member of the NPP bemoaned the rate at which the NDC was doing propaganda with critical national issues just to remain in office.

He said there was the need for the NPP to continue to expose the myth surrounding the NDC’s ‘Better Ghana Agenda.’

He said that President Mahama’s claim that "we shall review the Capitation Grant periodically to keep pace with cost levels..." cannot be trusted because “The NDC has not increased the capitation grant since 2009.”

“Why, you can't believe John Mahama when he says basic education shall be completely free under him in 2016. He has not even paid the meager capitation grant for almost a year now. NDC promised to make it totally free in 2008 and did nothing towards that. Same promise is repeated for 2012.”

“John Mahama says over 450,000 classroom spaces (1,700 schools under trees) have been provided. DI checks show only 480 schools under trees have been replaced. So how come enrollment at the basic level is actually decreasing in the Eastern region and other places? Truth is as expensive as the free SHS is to NDC.”