Former President John Dramani Mahama says, per his interactions with Ghanaians, he has realized that, Ghanaians are tired with the Akufo Addo led administration hence, calling for a change.
The former President seeking re-election on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), mentioned that, the citizenry have now come to the realization that his main opponent, the sitting President and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), won their votes by convincing them with empty promises.
He noted that, during the campaign period leading to the 2016 elections, President Akufo Addo and the NPP accused him and his administration for embezzling national funds while the people of Ghana wallowed in financial problems. He said, all this accusation and others were a conscious effort of the NPP and President Akufo Addo to deceive voters into voting him and the NPP into governance.
“You go round, the general feeling is Ghanaians are tired of this government, it’s been a whole litany of broken and false promises. In 2016 Nana Akufo Addo and his party went over the top in terms of promising, all they wanted was political power so anything was good to say.”
“You remember all his quotations about us sitting on money and yet Ghanaians are hungry; ‘Ghanaians are sorrowful, the money is there, we don’t need to borrow to fix this country’ and all that. All that was a hoax completely or a scam, in our local parlance we will say ‘sakawa’ without insult to anybody. But the people have seen through it now”
The NDC presidential candidate went on to say that, the only campaign message of his main opponent, President Akufo Addo is the implementation of the free senior high school policy, a policy he however maintained his stance of bad implementation. He said if voted into power, he, together with the NDC are going to see to the expunging of the double track system, which he said is putting a lot of inconvenience on parents of SHS students.
“You should just see Nana Addo go round, his only message is free SHS, that’s all and that is what he keeps harping, but even the implementation has been poor, and so we are saying that we are coming to make it better. Because we must work to take the double track away, it’s putting a lot of inconvenience on parents.
“Children come, stay at home for as long as three months or more, and a lot of parents who care about their children’s education have to go and get teachers to do extra studies… this makes it zero work done.”
Former President Mahama also indicated that, his administration left the economy of the country in a better position than it is now. He stated that, the economic growth of the nation had been projected at an 8 percent increase for 2017, because of the work his administration and himself did while in office.
He again mentioned that, his administration left huge sums of monies in various funds which could have been used to undertake various developmental projects in order to boost the economy, but he said there is nothing to show for those funds.
“I left him US$ 300million in the stabilization fund for a day such as this when corona struck…, I left him 270million in the sinking fund so that when the Kuffor Eurobond became due, there will be money to pay for it, I left him 270million in the Ghana infrastructure investment fund, I left him revenue from two new oil fields…, but what is there to show for it? Virtually nothing.”
He then alleged that, the sitting administration was ‘criminally’ hiding the true state of the Ghanaian economy until the outbreak of COVID-19, which revealed the true state of the Ghanaian economy.
