NDC rates NPP 14% in fulfilling 2016 manifesto promises

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has rated the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) 14 percent in the delivery of promises it made prior to the 2016 general elections.

At a press briefing on Monday, the NDC, per its “thorough analysis”, held that the government had delivered 86 out of its apparent 631 promises.

A presentation on the promises was led by Samual Okudzeto Ablakwa, the North Tongu MP, who said the fulfilment of the NPP’s promises was woeful despite the NDC’s leniency.

“You are given four good years of the destiny of the people and all you can do is 14 percent. And even this we have been so generous. You scored an F.”

He further accused the government of “mind-boggling” intellectual dishonesty because it was not being candid with citizens.

“You don’t even have the courage to apologise for it and try to see you make amends but you think you can lie your way through by understating the number of promises that you make.”

In February, the government came out with its own rating, saying it fulfilled 78 percent of its promises.

According to the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the government had delivered 114 of its promises while 189 additional promises are in the process of being fulfilled.

Despite the scathing assessment, Mr. Ablakwa insisted the NDC was rooting for better governance from the NPP.

“We would wish that our opponents perform when they are in government so we will be challenged to think harder and perform better when we get the opportunity so it becomes a positive competition to the top.”

As part of the presentation, the NDC announced a website, www.nppfailedpromises.com, which contains its attempt at fact-checking the NPP’s manifesto promises.

The website, which was temporarily online during the presentation, detailed the status of the promises.

According to Mr Ablakwa, President Akufo-Addo’s government’s claim that its total number of promises was 388 of which it has achieved 78 per cent so far, is false, adding that “no wonder the hashtag #KickNanaOut has been trending on social media.”

“You are given four good years of the destiny of the people and all you can do is 14 per cent. And even this we have been so generous. You scored an F”, Mr Ablakwa observed, adding: “You don’t even have the courage to apologise for it and try to see if you make amends but you think you can lie your way through by understating the number of promises that you made.”

On 11 February 2020, Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia declared that the Akufo-Addo government had achieved 78 per cent of its manifesto promises when he addressed participants at a Government Townhall Meeting and Results Fair in Kumasi, Ashanti Region.

Taking the audience through the challenges the nation faced when the Akufo-Addo administration took office, including declining economic growth, high inflation rate, high interest rates, high fiscal deficit, a weak and collapsing financial system, high unemployment, a health insurance scheme on the verge of collapse, four years of dumsor with its costs, and many parents unable to afford school fees for their children, Dr Bawumia said the NPP government had faced the challenges head-on and had delivered 78% of its manifesto promises.

“Notwithstanding the difficult economy we inherited, we had to get on with it and start to fix the problems. We were cognisant of our many promises. In fact, at the direction of President Akufo-Addo, we put together a dashboard of manifesto promises immediately after we were declared winners of the 2016 election, and before we were sworn into office. We have been using this dashboard to track our manifesto promises since”, the Vice-President said at the time.

“The challenge was huge. How could an economy that could not pay even teacher and nursing training allowances, suddenly deliver lower taxes, restore teacher and nursing training allowances, create jobs, implement free senior high school education, NABCo, Planting for Food and Jobs, One Village-One Dam, One Constituency-One Ambulance, reduce electricity prices, formalise the economy, industrialising the economy, reducing the cost of doing business, etc., while at the same time reducing the budget deficit and the rate of borrowing? It seemed an impossible task and our opponents were emphatic that we could not fulfill our promises. But we were very confident that with good economic management and by the grace of God, we could make what seemed impossible possible.

“The data and the evidence are clear that we have largely met our manifesto promises. We have delivered and are delivering on over 300 of our promises, and we are on course to do even more,” he declared.

Source: Ghana/otecfmghana.com