Friday, November 02, 2012

NPP Blasts Mahama Over Kayayie Politics



Boakye Agyarko - NPP Campaign Manager

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Accra, Friday November 2, 2012.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) says the attempt by President Mahama to disparage the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) promise to build hostels for Kayayie and other vulnerable groups “is evidence that the President has lost touch with realities on the ground.”

President Mahama is reported to have told the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) supporters at Savelugu in the Northern Region on Wednesday at a rally that Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s promise “is the most insulting of all his promises.”

The President is also reported to have described the NPP flagbearer’s promise as a clear indication that Nana Akufo-Addo is desperate for to win power.

Strangely, at a time when the President was condemning the NPP over the hostels, Dr. Tony Aidoo, the NDC’s Director of Policy Monitoring and Evaluation at the Presidency was on radio claiming ownership of the Kayayie Hostel idea for the ruling party and accusing the NPP of stealing it.

The NPP did not take kindly to the President’s purported comments and subsequently reacted to the emerging issues at a news conference in Accra yesterday.

Addressing the media, Boakye Agyarko, Campaign Manager of the NPP leader, challenged the President to state how the NDC intends to solve the accommodation problem of the large and vulnerable groups in the country.

He said “Never has there been a Head of State (not even one forced on Ghanaians) who did not have a clue as to the real needs of the people of this country than this Caretaker President, John Mahama.”

“For him to say that providing decent shelter for the growing numbers of Kayayie and street hawkers is insulting is in itself insulting to the life sufferings of these vulnerable young citizens of Ghana, who are constantly abused and have to endure the hazards of sleeping unprotected on urban streets and pavements, and many of them with their babies.”

He said “The NPP believes that, this is not how a society must treat its vulnerable groups and we will proceed to fix it with both short and long term measures.”

“In John Mahama, Ghanaians have a President who believes social housing is travelling to Korea to sign a bad deal for the construction of expensive 200,000 houses at an average price of $50,000, which did not even happen. There has been nothing social about any housing policy directly promoted by John Mahama under this NDC III regime,” the NPP said.

Mr. Agyarko accused the President of having the penchant to “misdirect his attacks on every visionary social policy by Nana Akufo-Addo.”

“It is obvious that the President is either not well-informed about Nana Akufo-Addo’s policy on social housing or has deliberately chosen to ignore the details for political expediency and in doing so has only succeeded in exposing his unforgivable ignorance of the subject-matter.”

He said the country is in danger of ignoring Kayayies, street hawkers, unskilled labourers among others who are hard working but are trying to survive the economic hardships of the system and the NPP would not let them down.

“Our programme is to build 100 social housing hostels in all regions, providing 24,000 beds hostel beds at the cost of GH¢ 140 million over a four-year period and we are going to partner the private sector to make this happen.”

The NPP Campaign Director said apart from renting the facilities cheaply to the occupants, they would run vocational, skills training in partnership with organizations and NGOs for the these vulnerable groups.

“We have designed the programme such that no occupant could remain in the facility for more than four years. We expect that after the skills training, the beneficiaries would be empowered to become self sustaining.”

“How can the President, whose party claims to put ‘people first’ come out against such a policy for the homeless?” and added “It shows confusion in his mind.”

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