Gabby urges Ghanaians to continue to have faith in gov’t

Private legal practitioner and member of the governing New Patriotic Party, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, has urged Ghanaians to do away with pessimism and support the government in fixing the many challenges affecting the country.

According to him, “a cloud of pessimism” is not the way to go, saying, if not checked, that “will suffocate us all”.

“Your government is standing up to the challenge. Ghanaians are standing up to the challenge. It has not been easy and it won’t be easy going. But we can beat this together…Blaming may be ok but there is work to be done,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

Track record

Gabby recalled that NPP governments, since Ghana’s 64 years after independence, have had 15 years to govern the country. He explained that out of the 15 years, comparing track records will point to the fact that NPP has a better record of fixing the country than any other government.

He said Busia was very much on track to fixing the country “when the wind of impatience blew him away”.

“Kufuor left the country better than he found it. Ghana was in a better shape in Jan 2020 (pre-Covid) than in Jan 2017 (pre-NPP). These are facts,” he said.

Akufo-Addo government

Listing some success chalked by the Akufo-Addo government, Mr Otchere-Darko said even though “Covid-19 is the worst crisis ever to face the world during peace time for over two centuries,” the government is standing up to the challenge.

Alluding to President Akufo-Addo’s commitment in his first State of the Nation Address, in which he stated that he “was elected to fix what is broken and my government and I are determined to do just that”, Mr Otchere-Darko said the government had been focused on doing just that.

“He fixed the financial sector by saving over 4.5 million banking customers, including individuals and businesses, from losing their cash in the banks. He spent nearly $4bn of taxpayers’ money to do this…it was not Akufo-Addo’s wish to spend over GHS12 billion of taxpayers’ money fixing a mess Mahama created in the energy sector with excess take-or-pay power purchasing agreements.

“Which responsible leader commits his country to paying hundreds of millions of dollars, year after year, for something his people don’t need? Akufo-Addo’s task has been to try to fix that mess, while respecting the sanctity of contracts which lacked sanity!” he said.

He added that the government has “protected better (relatively) the cash in the pockets of parents (free SHS and school feeding), patients (fixing NHIS), households (rescuing pensions, etc, cushioning water and electricity bills), supporting importers on duties and exchange rates, helping vehicle owners by controlling prices on petrol and diesel, supporting farmers with access to fertiliser, chemicals, irrigation, extension workers, etc.”

He further noted that the NPP has “managed the economy better on the macro level but also on the micro level (with greater access to funding under a better environment for the cedi, inflation and exchange rate) and millions more are about to be rolled out through the GhanaCares Programme.”

“Akufo-Addo has also embarked on an industrialization drive like never before. Yes, we always refer to the 1st Republic as the “golden age”. Nkrumah built 32 factories in 9 years, which became but a drain on the exchequer due through misalignment and mismanagement.

“The truth is, far more have been built or fixed in 4 years under 1D1F under Akufo-Addo. More global automobile companies have set base in Ghana under Akufo-Addo than under any other Govt in our 64 years. There is more to come as AFCFTA takes shape and Ghana is at the centre of it,” he noted.

“More roads have been constructed in Akufo-Addo’s 4 years than under any other such period in the 64 years,” he added.

He called on Ghanaians to continue to support the government

“Your government is working but there is a lot more to be done to address mass poverty and mass unemployment and they admit to it and will do more and we must push them to do more, but we must do so with our memory and expectations in sync,” he noted.