Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has requested of Ghanaians to comparatively assess the track record of both the incumbent government and opposition party, the NDC, over their delivery on policies.
With the December 7 elections beckoning, the Information minister insisted Ghanaians are the better judge of these records and also the credibility of promises made by leaders.
“If you have a leader who when he was president… promised as part of his party manifesto that they would bring a onetime premium for health insurance and for eight years they never did it and today he turns round to say that he will make primary health care free, does it sound like a credible promise?
“If you have somebody who during his period run down the Ghanaian economy, went to the IMF for a bailout and as a result could not employ young people when they were graduating from school… you recall the cancellation because of the economic crisis and the argument that even if they would vote against us they should against us and today this person comes and say that he is going to create 1 million jobs, does it sound to anybody like a credible promise? So the first thing to look at is the person’s track record”.
The Information minister buttressed his point further by citing instance where the previous administration failed.
“If you have somebody who from 2008 said I will do Free SHS and he has done free SHS and now he says that I will give student loan options for people to go to tertiary literally on credit and pay for it when they get a job. Does that sound like a credible promise? I dare say yes because he has done the first part. So the first part thing in discussing a person’s manifesto is the credibility angle of your track record.”
Addressing the media at a press briefing in Kumasi on Tuesday, September 8, 2020, he demanded that the basis for performance should be on actual deeds and not just mere declaration of intent.
“Having seen how he [John Mahama] managed the economy previously, and he coming back to say that the first pillar of his manifesto is to restore the economy and cure poverty, we have seen how he did it in the last four years, and cannot be trusted to turn the economy around”.
Earlier in an interview, the deputy Minister for Information, Pius Enam Hadzide, had described the NDC’s manifesto as a rehash of old unfulfilled promises by the erstwhile John Mahama government.
Pius Hadzide said touting the NDC manifesto launched on Monday as a People’s Manifesto is a deception engineered to hoodwink Ghanaians to vote for the NDC in the upcoming December elections.
“It was a rehash of old promises not kept, especially the payment of assembly members was an old John Mahama promise not kept…what I am worried about is the credibility of the promises, we must benchmark their promises against their track record because they have made promises in the past that they have not kept.”
