Stephen Ayensu Ntim, NPP National Chairman
The National Chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Stephen Ayensu Ntim, has asked the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to be honest and upfront with Ghanaians in all things.
Addressing a press conference in Accra yesterday, he implored the opposition NDC to desist from the habit and strategy of deceit in its quest for power. Mr Ntim noted that “such methods are often short-term but have long-term ramifications for democracy, public confidence, and, not least, the global perception and embrace of our dear country, Ghana.”
To this end, he charged the rank and file of the NPP to arise and mobilise behind government to defeat the onslaught of the NDC’s running vile propaganda games.
“This means that all of us in the NPP, from polling stations upward, must become canvassers and communicators to help disabuse the minds of our fellow Ghanaians from the misinformation that the NDC is feeding the nation,” he added.
Anti-corruption
The NPP chairman further urged the electorate not to fall for the deceit of the NDC to win electoral support.
He recounted how the NDC vilified former President Kufuor and his appointees, and accused them of being corrupt.
He said, in spite of that accusation, when the NDC won the 2008 election and formed a government in 2009, until 2016, it could not convict a single appointee of the Kufuor administration for corruption.
He pointed out that the NDC is not in the right standing when ranting and talking about corruption, saying “it is the only political party in the Fourth Republic whose appointees or officials have been convicted and sentenced for corruption-related offences.”
He pointed out the consistent anti-corruption efforts by the NPP, which were initiated under former President Kufuor, and were followed up with the setting up of the Office of Special Prosecutor (OSP) by President Akufo-Addo to fight corruption proactively.
Good managers
The NPP Chair further noted that the NPP government had managed the economy diligently, saying “the hardships we are experiencing in Ghana are being experienced everywhere because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine War”.
He indicated that workers in some of the world’s biggest economies are demanding salary increases due to historic global inflation. “It is happening in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. In the United Kingdom, I was told a couple of weeks ago that they had to ration vegetables and cooking oil. Can you imagine rationing pepper in Ghana? he quizzed.
“The Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, confirmed the impact of Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine War on the United States economy and how difficult the effort to rebuild has been. Kenya, one of the most dynamic economies in East Africa, has recently run out of U.S. dollars. Most fuel and oil importers claim they cannot import the product because they do not have foreign currency. This has led to widespread fuel shortages in major towns and cities, especially in Nairobi.
“The Akufo-Addo administration continues to demonstrate support for anti-corruption agencies such as the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice and the Auditor General’s Department to protect the public purse,” he added.
Referring to the time the NDC government went to the IMF for support in August 2014, Mr Ntim revealed that Ghana had only seven days’ worth of imports in net foreign exchange reserves, equivalent to $400 million.
However, he said, when the NPP sought the support of the IMF in July last year, Ghana’s international reserves stood at $7.6 billion, covering 3.4 months of import cover.
“One of the central claims of the NDC’s false state of the nation address is that this government has over-borrowed. This is not true, but the NDC keeps repeating it. The NDC likes to promote this misinformation by computing our debt stock using nominal figures because it hides their unprecedented rate of debt accumulation,” he added.
Gov’t size
On claims that the government had ignored calls to reduce its size, the NPP Chairman said the government had been listening to Ghanaians, and is establishing a more robust control mechanism to manage expenditure, while maintaining a dynamic team of ministers and appointees to deliver on its mandate.
The NDC, he said, had been promoting the view that this government had appointed people to needless positions and is paying them for doing nothing.
“It must be stated on record that many of the workers at the Presidency are public sector employees. Out of the 995 workers at the Presidency, 658 (66 percent) are public sector employees,” he disclosed.
“The NDC government had more presidential staffers than Akufo-Addo’s administration. We have 44 presidential staffers and one Minister of State at the Presidency, but the Mahama-NDC Administration had 61 presidential staffers, six Ministers of State, and the 3 “wise men,”, he concluded.
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