Don’t choke future generations with debt; NPP man cautions government

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Category: Elections & Governance

Created on Friday, 17 June 2011 00:00

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Don’t choke future generations with debt; NPP man cautions government

A leading member of the New Patriotic Party has expressed worry over what he claims is the

borrow-happy tendencies being exhibited by President John Mills’ government.

Hackman Owusu Agyemang fears the future generation will be stifled with so much debt if the

rate at which government is borrowing is not curtailed.

Speaking to Joy News’ Parliamentary Correspondent, Sammy Darko, the Member of Parliament for

New Juabeng North criticized the legislative body for not playing its oversight

responsibility over the executive as far as loan and financial agreements were concerned.

“Parliament has not been terribly effective in its oversight duties over the executive.

Whichever government is in power, parliament has not been effective,” he observed.

Even though he conceded every country needs funds for infrastructural development, he argued there must be a limit to which a government can borrow, especially when the investment for which those monies will be put to are not clearly defined.

Owusu Agyemang cited the STX loan costing $1.5 billion, for 30,000 housing units, and a potential $10 billion for 200,000 units, an investment he considered audacious and unprecedented.

He admitted the NPP, whilst in government, also borrowed for infrastructural development but maintained it was not at this rate.

He is convinced the NDC has borrowed more money in two and half years than the eight years  of the NPP in government.

According to him, the House on Thursday approved almost half a billion in loans, something he insists is alarming and should not be countenanced.

“The moment you begin to acquire that much debt, and if you do not improve the productive capacities of the economy, if you don’t take care, you will establish a vicious cycle of always going into debt.”

Fiscal space

But his assertions have been debunked by the Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament.

James Afedzi told Joy News’ Dzifah Bampoh Ghana as a developing country, or as at the lower end of the middle income country, needs money for infrastructural development in education, energy and roads.

“All these things put together means that as a country we still have to find ways to catch up with these issues."

He said arguments that the Ghana is borrowing too much is not sustainable because no country

will credit Ghana with loans knowing too well the country will not be able to pay back.

He argued “Ghana has the fiscal space to borrow and that is why we are borrowing”.

He reiterated that monies borrowed have to be invested in productive ventures, adding, the government is doing just that.

He said unless there is evidence to suggest that loans are diverted into other unproductive activities, he was convinced the Mills administration is on the right track.

He also dismissed assertions that the legislature is not playing its over sight responsibility well enough, saying, Parliament has had to turn back the executive on some cases it was convinced the loans were not properly conceived.


Story by Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana

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Ashanti NDC Reject Mills' Cash

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Category: Politics

Created on Wednesday, 15 June 2011 00:00

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Ashanti NDC Reject Mills' Cash

THE CAMPAIGN team of President John Evans Atta Mills suffered a major setback last Friday when some constituency and regional executives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Ashanti region braved the odds and rejected cash amounts meant to influence them.

Credible information gathered by DAILY GUIDE indicates that barely 24 hours after Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings completed her one-week tour of the region and left last Thursday, the Get Atta Mills Endorsed (GAME) team was said to have hurriedly dispatched a high-powered delegation, led by former Finance and Economic Planning Minister Kwame Peprah, to meet regional and constituency executives of the party.

Peprah and his team, which included Ghana’s Ambassador to the Czech Republic and former Spokesman of the Rawlingses, Victor Smith, and some high ranking members of the party, were said to have met all 39 constituency executives and regional executives at the Trade Union Congress (TUC) building in Kumasi, in a bid to find out what the former First Lady and wife of the party’s founder, who is contesting President Mills for the flagbearership position of the NDC, had come to tell them.

This, according to the paper’s source, generated a heated argument among the party functionaries, with some seeking to know from the party bigwigs why they were now inviting them to a meeting, since most of them felt neglected.

In the heat of events, the Ashanti Regional Propaganda Secretary of the NDC, Justice Alpha, who is currently the Regional Director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), was said to have attempted to defend government, claiming to have benefitted a lot from the Mills administration.

He was said to have prided himself of having been made the Regional NADMO boss, the result of which had earned him a BMW and a Hyundai i10 saloon cars respectively.

His comment was said to have angered majority of the executives who threatened to leave the meeting grounds because most of them said they felt neglected by the President and his people, thereby vowing to vote for Konadu when the party goes to congress come July 8.

Kwame Peprah and his team were said to have offered to give each of the executives an amount of GH¢1,000 to appease them and to get them to vote for President Mills in the upcoming congress.

But most of the constituency executives, especially the youth
organisers and the secretaries, were said to have turned down the offer, whilst others were said to have collected the money.


Source: Charles Takyi-Boadu/Daily Guide

 

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"We Don’t Cook Up Figures” – GSS Tells NPP

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Category: Elections & Governance

Created on Thursday, 16 June 2011 00:00

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"We Don’t Cook Up Figures” – GSS Tells NPP

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has dismissed claims by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that inflation

figures released by the service are not a true reflection of what is on the ground.

The NPP on Wednesday June 15 asserted that figures being released by the service indicate there is a reduction in the price of goods and services are untrue as price of goods and services are on the increase.

The annual rate of inflation fell to 8.90 percent in May from 9.02 per cent in April on the back of lower food prices. Dr Grace Bediako, announcing the figures said the marginal decline in inflation was because of the downward trend in the food and non-alcoholic beverages group.

But the opposition NPP rejects the figures and explanations from the government statistician. It said the GSS may be cooking the figures to suit the government in power.

However, Mrs Grace Bediako in an interview with Citi News said the service is an independent institution which does not cook figures to suit any government.

“We don’t cook up figures...It is not about what happened last month or this month, it is about a year ago so we just need people to understand what the inflation represents so that they can emphasize on it and not about cooking figures”.

Mrs Grace Bediako said the process used by the service over the years to calculate inflation figures is the same one being applied today.

She questioned whether figures over the years were to please the government in power at that time.

“Until we release the figures government doesn’t know the number and that is an important principle for anybody who wants to coerce you to change the number. Both governments have appreciated it and it makes our work easy and nobody is trying to get the number before we release it and that makes us to operate with professional independence”.


Source: Citifmonline.com

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Does Nana Addo Want To Be President?

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Category: Politics

Created on Wednesday, 15 June 2011 00:00

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Does Nana Addo Want To Be President?

If Nana Akufo-Addo does not win the 2012 elections, it would not be because President Mills has fulfilled his campaign promises but because the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has repeated or perhaps doubled the suicidal mistakes it committed in 2008.

The NPP, even in opposition, is behaving like a party that has won power and thus members must do eye-service just to catch the eyes of Mr. President. Sycophantic eye-services that includes flattery, back-stabbing, refusing to acknowledge genuine mistakes and flaws and above all opposing anyone who makes a genuine constructive criticism.

As we write this piece, those who matter within the top-notch of the NPP leadership know in their hearts and conscience that they are yet to cure the mischief and harm the so-called Nana-Addo vs Alan-John Kufuor camps have created for the party. They may pose for the cameras warmly shaking hands and flashing broad smiles alright but fact remains that it is only a window dressing that does not go beyond media gimmicks.

If the NPP is not behaving like a political party on a suicide mission, why would the flag- bearer's generals and his chief spokesperson storm Suhm in the heat of the constituency's parliamentary primary to campaign for one aspirant who is believed to be a Nana Addo loyalist as against the party’s Parliamentary Chief Whip who has not hidden his soft-spot for Alan?

Nana Addo may boldly tell the whole country he has no candidate and we would take his word as gospel but when persons in his cartel make such dangerous moves that can be backed by audio tapes yet the candidate remains tight lipped, it fuels a dangerous perception it was done with his blessing.

The unrest in the Okai-Koi South Constituency between Vicky Bright and Ahmed Arthur over who was slighted at the Constituency primaries can be traced to this same Nana-Addo vs Alan-John Kufuor camps yet the party would not accept the truth and would rather get some media houses to tell a different story.

Somebody comes from the United States of America to win the parliamentary slot of a coastal seat which happens to be a swing seat and quickly goes back forgetting that to win a seat along the coastal line is your closeness with the people. Nana Addo is the man of the people is what you hear from his apologists yet when he became Attorney General of the Republic of Ghana, the known killers of the Kumepreko demonstrators were not prosecuted and not even a fund was set up for the families of the dead.

The I was born at Nima’ chorus meant to make Nana Addo look and sound like the ordinary everyday Ghanaian is nothing but a slogan that he uses to tickle himself to excitement. An otherwise good slogan which his party should have taken advantage of and used it to erase that tag of arrogance wrongly riveted on his neck.

Rather, the party watches the candidate profess to have being born in Nima yet does not identify with them. He stays in a plush house at the edge of the Nima community yet his pretty wife has never been seen taking a stroll to the Nima market to fraternize with the women there. We are not taking of a drive through or a walk through during campaign season. That would be overly artificial and cosmetic. We are talking of the normal day to day shopping done by the everyday woman.
That link is just not there and the party would not even think of creating one.

Maybe the NPP is satisfied that the candidate's wife visits Nima only when her air-conditioned and tainted-glass vehicle drives through the market road while she is relaxed in the cozy back seat peeping down at the sweat drenched market women who point fingers and say that is Nana Addo's wife's car.

The NPP media houses continue to paint a very rosy picture rather than tell Nana Addo the truth and that is his predicament in our candid opinion. If the NPP friendly media had told Nana Addo just twenty percent truth in 2008, his party might have avoided some fatal mistakes that cost it the election. This is 2011, a year to the next election and we still see the same media houses writing stories to that would make the flag-bearer swollen headed rather than stories that would draw his attention to the glaring symptoms of an electoral defeat.

The friendly media houses who have a soft spot for the NPP and ought to act as watch dogs have become lap dogs with some even compromising their positions so cannot tell him the truth or perhaps do not have the guts to tell him in the face that he has to sit up, roll his sleeves, lace his boots and start the harvest rather than remain glued to his Nima residence aside the occasional weekend funerals he attends.

The owners of the media houses and their pot-bellied editors should ask their reporters to tell them whether Candidate Mills was not open and easily accessible. Even today, it is easier for a journalist to have access to the President of Ghana than the flag-bearer of the NPP yet the party wants to delude itself that it is in touch with the ordinary Ghanaian. Truth hurts but it must be told.

Where is the issues based politics he promised in 2008, polls from bogus persons and institutions would come but that alone can not win you elections? If Nana himself realizes that the internal wrangling in the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is not a sure bet of victory then Jake and Sir John should sit up. We ask sincerely, is the NPP ready to win the battle! The NPP must think of how to convince indecisive voters to vote for them and for that must show unity, homogeneity and solidarity.

Simply put: From now on, does the NPP have one target which is to win elections in all polling stations and constituencies and work hard to achieve a sweeping victory? Have they all started the work now...Hand in hand with the Stephen Ntims, the Prof. Kwabena Frimpongs, the Wereko Brobbeys, the Ohene Ntows and a host of others on the same pedestal with the Boakye Agyakos, Osafo Marfos, Kofi Osei Ameyaws or the Lord Commeys?This is the only way that will enable Nana Addo and the NPP to achieve its objectives. The decision is theirs not ours!


Source: DayBreak

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