Former President John Mahama
The flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has attributed the party’s inability to implement the free health insurance policy in their 2008 manifesto to the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) prepared by the Kufuor NPP administration before exiting power.
He said the SSSS was not part of the NDC programme but since the Kufuor administration had started it, they had to continue; thus, making it difficult to implement their own policy.
“So in the first administration, we had to find means of implementing it and so payments started in 2012 and continued all the way to 2015, including arrears and all that and so it really put a lot of pressure on the economy and so our ability to manage all that,” Mr. Mahama revealed.
He made this known at the third edition of a flagship leadership dialogue series organised by the Centre for Social Justice.
Present were some professional groups and business owners who scrutinised and interrogated his plans as captured in the NDC’s 2020 manifesto.
He continued that by the time the NDC took office in 2008, wages and salaries were consuming almost 73 per cent of tax revenue and so they had only 27 per cent of tax revenue for goods and services, capital expenditure, among others.
“And once you started implementing the single spine, you have ballooned the expenditure and narrowed the fiscal space and so it made it difficult in that circumstance for us to implement the one-time premium but with regard to our 2020 manifesto of the free primary healthcare, we have clearly outlined the source of funding ,” he added.
Mr. Mahama mentioned that the next NDC government was going to use $1.4 billion from the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) on oil revenue which is currently being used to fund Free SHS by the Akufo-Addo administration to fund free primary healthcare.
He continued that the next NDC government was also going to extend the Free Senior High School (FSHS) policy to private schools and implement it better than the Akufo-Addo government.
Interestingly, it was the same Mr. Mahama and his NDC who campaigned against the Free SHS and said it was an impossibility when then candidate Akufo-Addo promised it.
Mr. Mahama maintained that he was also going to abolish the double track system as well as slash fees of tertiary students by fifty per cent.
The NDC flagbearer said as a politician, one must develop a thick skin for criticisms as part of the game.
“When I came into government as a deputy minister, I had a very thin skin; anything that was said about me, I couldn’t sleep that night and I corrected every misinformation about me and was writing rejoinders and things but you get to a stage where you realise it comes with the job and your skin becomes as thick as a crocodile,” he added.
By Linda Tenyah-Ayettey
lindatenyah@gmail.com