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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