Time really flies. Sometime ago, the then opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) labelled the New Patriotic Party (NPP) ‘family and friends government.’
The foregone meant that only family and friends of top personalities of government were considered for appointments. Those who shared common names with the President were tagged his family members even when there was no such link.
That is how propaganda has been used to advance the cause of the NDC.
Time, as it is said, is pregnant and when it is delivered of its contents, the truth stands out unambiguously.
Information reaching us indicate that the pilot project of migrating some private schools onto the Free Senior High School (SHS) arrangement is riddled with the ‘family, friends and party cronyism’ contagion.
While some regions have not been considered, one has up to four schools suspected to belong to the same NDC regional chairman.
That is his reward for his unflinching support for the NDC.
Ordinarily being Ghanaian, he must not be discriminated against in terms of sharing resources. When, however, glaringly others because they do not belong to the same political party are denied same, we have reasons to call out government to do right.
While we would like to keep details of such chairman to our chests, it is important to note that tongues are already wagging about the anomaly.
An important pilot project such as this should be spared improprieties to ensure its success.
A level playing field where all Ghanaian school proprietors, irrespective of their political allegiances, are considered for such projects will go a long way in ensuring national cohesion.
We call on the Education Ministry and the Free SHS Secretariat to reconsider the seeming lopsided consideration of some proprietors of their so-called political correctness.
We must all join in building a country where all citizens can partake in the national pie.
The discussion on air yesterday about the anomaly appears to suggest that government is on a deliberate project of considering only party faithful, even in the case of a subject as under review.
Our journey from independence to date has been a long one, and we should not continue showing such negative traits in governance.
It is not too late to take another look at the subject, especially since it is creating bad blood between those at the forefront of the pilot project and school proprietors, many of the latter thinking that theirs too should be considered.
Being a pilot project, we demand committed monitoring and evaluation so that challenges, when they rear their heads, are tackled swiftly.
Shielding those who do not meet the set standards simply because they are party people would not help us.