John Mahama
THE opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and its flagbearer have taken a pounding from the Vice-President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, over their ‘insincerity’ with Ghanaians, asserting that their currency of trust with the public, which is so vital to the credibility of promises being made to voters, has been severely devalued.
He said Mr. Mahama and the NDC had lost credibility and that Ghanaians cannot risk the progress made by bringing them back to power to come and destroy the gains.
“They will say anything that they think they need to say to win an election. So even things that they have brought into being they are trying to go back on some of those things,” Dr. Bawumia stated in an interview with Peace FM’s Kwami Sefa Kayi on ‘Kokrokoo’ yesterday.
According to him, this explained why a major part of the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP’s) manifesto “was devoted to protect our progress,” adding that “the first part has been used to account for our stewardship.”
“And in this election, it is very important that we do not throw away all the achievements and gains made. We have to consolidate what we have done,” he posited and added “we have done so many things. You can talk about NABCO, Free SHS, One District One Factory, One Constituency One Ambulance and so many projects that we have started.”
The Vice-President said it had become imperative to consolidate the progress and protect everything “because if you make a change, you will see an unwinding of the programmes like Free SHS.”
“I have no doubt in my mind that the credibility and sincerity of the NDC on Free SHS cannot be trusted. They give so many versions of what they think about it,” he indicated and continued that the NDC and its presidential candidate had not been able to point out one specific thing they want to do about the programme “except to say they would review.”
“What does review of the Free SHS mean? This is a policy that has been in place almost for the past four years and if you want to change anything about it you should be able to say I will do A, B, C so as to enable us to interrogate. But you say you would review; it doesn’t make sense,” he intimated.
On the restoration of the teacher and nursing trainee’s allowances, Dr. Bawumia said, “They said they never cancelled them in the first place; you don’t understand.”
“They said they replaced it with a loan. So is the loan the same as a grant? Have you heard of this before? If you say you have replaced it then it means you have cancelled the grant. You cannot say you haven’t cancelled,” he stated.
“This is a simple English language. Cancellation of a grant is not the same as introduction of a loan because the two are not the same,” he added.
By Ernest Kofi Adu