Hold Akufo-Addo to account for his Lofty Campaign Promises-Alhaji Sheriff urges Ghanaians
A National Executive Member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Alhaji Sheriff Abdul-Nasiru has urged Ghanaians to hold President Akufo-Addo to account for what he fulfilled of his lofty campaign promises and stop blaming external forces.
According to him for almost six years the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration came on board after wresting power from the NDC in 2016, because pundits claimed the Mahama-led government was unable to solve the country’s major challenges there has not been an effort to fix the economy.
The feat was achieved because the majority of Ghanaians believed that a government led by Nana Akufo-Addo would fulfill most if not all of its campaign promises.
Alhaji Sheriff said President Akufo Addo as a then-candidate focused his 2016 election campaigns on key matters affecting the country, especially corruption, free senior high school, insecurity and the need to revive the economy by moving away from taxation to production.
The most touted promises were the war against corruption using the Anas Principles, ensuring food security, an integrated transport network, free education, devolution of power, accelerated economic growth and affordable housing and health care were hyped.
Hon Alhaji Sheriff Abdul-Nasiru
Despite the fact that these campaign promises deliberately chosen by the President were not been fully realized, against the high expectations of Ghanaians, Akufo Addo was re-elected for a second term of four years in 2020.
President Akufo Addo repeated these promises during the re-election campaign and sued for more understanding from Ghanaians based on past mistakes and unforeseen circumstances like COVID-19 that affected his first term of four years.
But Alhaji Sheriff said six years down the line, some of the key electoral promises seem not to have been redeemed and that there has been a resurgence of economic hardship, business collapsing and insurgency of insecurity terrorism in the Northern parts of the country.
The NDC guru listed some of the promises that turned out to rather be malpractices under Akufo Addo including, “I Shall protect the Public Purse, I am too old to steal your money, I have my money already, Yɛte sikaso nso ɛkɔm deyɛn, I am not corrupt and will never be corrupt, I can develop Ghana without borrowing, the money is here, I will transform Ghana in 18 months.”
“I will not operate a family and friends government, I will fight corruption with the Anas principle, I will make the Korle lagoon and Odo river a tourist site, I will build a factory in every district, I will give each constituency $1m every year, I will arrest the dollar, The hikes in fuel prices will be a thing of the past, I will make Accra the cleanest city in Africa, I will build 111 hospitals in 18 months, I will build 350 Secondary Schools, We will never go to the IMF for a bailout,” he added.
While assessing the government based on its main campaign promises, Alhaji Sheriff said the Akufo-Addo administration has underperformed in all the key sectors of the economy, fighting against corruption and tackling insecurity.
In his considered view, the President had performed below expectation these past six years, adding that he had “not delivered on his promises to the satisfaction of friends and foes alike in those areas he had personally chosen as his signature projects.”
He added that President Akufo-Addo rode on the crest of unprecedented popular public support which most Ghanaians believed he was the answer to the myriad of alleged problems that beset the country, prior to his ascension, saying “his pride of being a human rights lawyer, a hyped reputation as a man of impeccable character and integrity, and the fact that for 25 years he struggled to win the presidency, persuaded many Ghanaians that he was the right person for the job.”
Shifting the responsibility for the economic doldrums on COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukrain war, Alhaji Sheriff said is a completely irresponsible act of government and that the Akufo-Addo government has benefited from the COVID pandemic and should rather be thankful to the NDC government that put up adequate health system in place to absorb what could have worse for Ghanaians under the current administration.
President Akufo Addo
Summarily, he said the Akufo-Addo administration has failed miserably to fight corruption and failed to improve the economy which had led to current hardship, prices of goods and services, and fuel, among others, increasing on a daily basis if not hourly.
He, therefore, charged Ghanaians to hold the President and his administration to fulfill their campaign promises to rescue the rumpling economy and stop shifting the blame game on a system that does not experience only in Ghana.
Source: expressnewsghana.com
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