Yaw Boabeng Asamoah, and Mustapha Hamid addressing the press
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has expressed concern about the use of state resources to buy and share freebies to supporters of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) by President Mahama on his campaign tours.
Addressing a press conference at the party’s Asylum Down national headquarters in Accra yesterday, party spokesperson who doubles as the parliamentary candidate for the Adentan Constituency, Yaw Buaben-Asamoa, said, “Given the lack of political traction for vote buying, the NPP would not have bothered to engage on it, but for the alarming waste of questionable resources involved in reportedly and allegedly giving away vehicles, houses, motorbikes, outboard motors, head pans, gas cylinders, tablets, mobile telephones and raw cash.”
He also raised questions about the picture in which President Mahama was captured giving a wad of cash to a chief in the full glare of the public.
To Mr Buaben-Asamoah, that showed the depth to which the presidency has in desperation sunk, in pursuit of what he described as “a phantom political desire.”
Concerns
The spokesperson, flanked by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the party’s standard bearer and Alhaji Mustapha Hamid, Buaben-Asamoa could not but ask rhetorically, “The real question, Mr. President, is whether you are going to pay all of us to vote for you?”
That, he said was because “millions of Ghanaians are out of job, are dropping out of school, are not being treated in hospitals, cannot afford electricity and rent and would rather walk than pay for transportation.”
He noted, “This sorry plight is due primarily to the misalignment of resources away from essential services and priorities to high rent seeking projects.”
The vice presidential candidate of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has often asked without any tangible response from the NDC government, “Where has the record amount of resources in tax revenue, cocoa and gold export revenues, oil revenues, loans and grants collected between 2009 to 2015 gone?”
He wondered why the Mahama-led NDC government has driven the country to what he described as “unprecedented gargantuan debt levels” projected over a GH¢100 billion, even with the endowments available, adding that that “translates into suffering for the average Ghanaian voter, who for lack of non-payment of statutory obligations by the government, cannot access benefits from anaemic social services.”
Lame Excuses
For him, government’s excuse for this sorry state of affairs, attributing it to public policy, is nothing but lame, asking rhetorically, “How could public policy translate into vehicles and houses for political cronies? Or even worse, how can public policy explain stuffing of wads of cash into a chiefs’ pocket, at a time when the basic needs of the people are not being met? Could the more plausible explanation be that precious state resources meant for the common good are being deliberately or otherwise siphoned into vote buying at the expense of critical social investments?”
Mr Buaben-Asamoa noted that the mix of policy with gift giving represents a scary prospect for governance, if not checked. “NDC Government tested the mix in the three-month run-up to the 2012 elections with devastating results for public finances,” he recalled and said the government overspent in excess of GH¢8.7 billion by the end of the year under review.
References
The NPP spokesman recalled the distribution of GH¢50.00 notes through all means, including envelopes stuffed into half pieces of cloth shared at trotro stations and mails to youth of voting age in schools, for which reason he was convinced, “What we witnessed and experienced in the run-up to election 2012 could be likened to a deliberate shift of gargantuan public resources into the sole purpose of influencing electoral outcomes in the name of implementing public policy.”
That, he claimed led to a situation where real public policy needs by way of salaries, allowances, subventions and payments for services rendered to government as well as statutory payments remained unpaid and the country experienced spiralling strikes by doctors, lecturers, civil servants, pharmacists, nurses and others, whiles the energy sector crisis festered.
Cost Effect
Buaben-Asamoa maintained, “That deliberate mismanagement and incompetence was the rush into the arms of the IMF, in spite of oil revenue. Even that, worryingly, has become cold comfort as noises and allegations of poor reporting gradually emerge, with likely dire consequences for effective completion of the programme.”
He therefore believes, “The only solution is to vote the President Mahama Government out and restore responsible and accountable governance.”
Clarion Call
“The decision to change incompetence, corruption and insensitivity for decisive and accountable governance will determine the future prospects of the youth of this country for the next several political generations,” he noted, adding, “A poor decision to grant 12 years of governance to the President John Mahama-led NDC administration may ultimately lead to the final collapse of a socio-political economy which even though well-endowed with resources, is virtually on its knees from sheer incompetence and unprecedented levels of corruption through family and friends governance.”
By Charles Takyi-Boadu