Kofi Akpaloo
The Leader of Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), Kofi Akpaloo, has taken a swipe at President John Dramani Mahama’s famous ‘Nkoko Nkitinkiti’ policy, arguing that the programme is selective in nature so it doesn’t benefit the masses.
According to him, the beneficiaries of the ‘Nkoko Nkitinkiti’ programme are mainly National Democratic Congress (NDC) executives in the various constituencies across the country, who were given few chicks to rear, raising doubts about the impact of the policy.
Mr. Akpaloo stated emphatically that the country needs social intervention programmes that will benefit the entire citizenry regardless of their political affiliation, just like the Free Senior High School (SHS) programme.
The LPG founder was of the view that former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration had the progress and interest of the entire people at heart, so they introduced programmes that benefitted everyone.
He, therefore, wondered why the NDC government only focuses on policies that benefit only few of their party executives without thinking about the general interest of the country, stressing that he really admired former President Akufo-Addo’s policies.
“The NDC administration, led by President John Mahama, has introduced the ‘Nkoko Nkitinkiti’ policy, which sadly benefits few. The chicks were shared to few NDC executives only. This weird practice and behaviour doesn’t move the country forward.
“The country needs a policy like the Free SHS, which was introduced by former President Akufo-Addo, because it benefitted everyone. This fantastic social intervention programme benefitted everyone, so it increased enrolment in Senior High Schools (SHS),” he pointed out.
Mr. Akpaloo stated that the Free SHS programme increased enrolment in schools to the extent that at a time, the government had to introduce the “Double Track System” in order to admit the sizable number of students/beneficiaries of the programme.
“The Free SHS is a social intervention programme that you can state that it benefitted everyone without discrimination unlike the ‘Nkoko Nkitinkiti’ policy, which is not making any meaningful impact,” he said during an interview with Omanhene of Owia TV.
He also commended the NPP for undertaking several projects, especially in the road sector, and charged the NDC government to complete projects that were started by their predecessors, saying that it doesn’t benefit the country when government’s abandon projects.
“Abandoning projects that were started by the NPP administration is not the best, so the NDC should complete all the developmental projects that were started by the NPP government to help benefit the nation,” Mr. Akpaloo admonished.
He also sounded a strong caution that if sitting governments in the country continue to abandon projects that were started by their predecessors, the country would continue to wallow in adverse poverty “and we will never stop going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for support.”
FROM I.F. Joe Awuah, Kumasi