Henry Nana Boakye aka Nana B
The track record of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) shows that it is more pro-poor and human-centred than the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) which is struggling to label itself as a pro-poor party despite its poor record for the well-being of Ghanaians, the National Youth Organizer of NPP, Henry Nana Boakye aka Nana B, has pointed out.
He said the 2020 Manifesto of the NDC with the title: “People’s Manifesto; Jobs and Prosperity and More” is a complete deception and full of unrealistic promises designed to deceive Ghanaians into voting for the party to reverse the life-changing achievements chalked up by the NPP government so far.
Nana B, speaking at the party’s public education series dubbed: “The Youth Must Know” said the former President, John Mahama, who is also leading the NDC into the 2020 general election, had promised to provide one million jobs over the next four years when he gets the mandate again, but he superintended over the collapse of over 850 companies as a result of poor handling of the economy through dumsor when he was President.
He said in just three years of the NPP government, more than two million jobs had been created for mainly Ghanaian youth and more would be created in the next four years by the same government.
He gave the breakdown of job creation by the NPP government as follows; 778,706 jobs created in the public sector; 267,939 jobs created in the formal private sector; 1,008,365 jobs created under Nations Builders’ Corps (NABCO), National Entrepreneurship Innovation Plan, Ghana Commercial Agricultural Project, National Identification Authority and Out Grower Value Chain Fund.
According to him, former President is on record to have declared that ‘he was not a magician to create jobs’ and is now turning around to make more promises about jobs.
He said former President can never have the interest of Ghanaians at heart when he openly and vehemently opposed the Free SHS policy by this government which has so far benefitted 1.2 million Ghanaians and turns round to say he will maintain the policy and even expand it to the private senior high schools in deprived areas.
Nana B said the NDC’s promise to absorb half of tuition fees of all university students is a ‘deception’ because it was under his tenure that free utility bills for students were cancelled for students to pay.
He said by calculation, the NDC would have to cough up over GH¢415 million to absorb the school fees of tertiary students which it cannot do.
Nana B also said former President Mahama cancelled the monthly allowances for teacher trainees and nursing students and vehemently opposed their reintroduction which the NPP promised to do.
He said in the 2020 Manifesto of the NPP, it has promised to introduce the National Rental Assistant Scheme with seed money of GH¢100 million as well as student loans without guarantors which he said would definitely benefit the youth of the nation.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr