STATESMAN OPINION: The Electorate Won�t Buy NDC�s False Claims

One wonders why President John Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress think mounting countless giant billboards across the country is what they need to help the electorate appreciate what they claim to be the unprecedented development they have undertaken in the last eight years in office.

President Mahama and his government claim they have touched the lives of the Ghanaian electorate with an unprecedented infrastructural development in all parts of the country.

One would have therefore expected that the so-called massive development being touted by President Mahama and his functionaries would be visible to the electorate who will use it as a basis to decide whether on vote the governing party should be retained when they go to the polls on December 7.

Ironically, the governing party’s strategy is to execute a very expensive campaign through sharing of freebies and erection of giant bill boards among others, at time every sector of the economy is crying for cash.

Obviously, the giant billboards expose the false claims being bundled around by the President and members of the NDC that the country has seen more achievements under their reign.

Erecting huge political billboards wastes an incredible amount of money by putting the face of the president in front voters who are wallowing in poverty.

Even this assertion has been shared by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Hanna Tetteh, who about two weeks ago, when addressing NDC party faithful in her constituency, opined that politics is about winning the hearts of the electorate and not about erecting huge and expensive billboards while the electorate wallow in poverty.

If the comments from the minister are anything to go by, then we expect that the so-called good works carried by President Mahama should be felt in the lives of the masses that will then use that as the basis to retain him in power.

We agree with George Andah, NPP parliamentary candidate for Awutu Senya West, when he says what is happening smacks of opulent display of wealth by a government that claims to be doing well while people are wallowing in poverty.

“If the people know that you have affected their lives what is the reason in spending so much money on billboards?” he asked.

Let the records be set straight that the eight years of NDC government has yielded nothing except a clear execution of agenda to amass wealth by President Mahama’s family and friends; killing of businesses, collapse social intervention programmes, including the National Health Insurance Scheme, School Feeding Programme, Capitation Grant, among others.

President Mahama and his government have simply failed in delivering on the mandate the electorate gave them eight years ago. Yet, they keep resorting to their usual politics of lies and chicanery to create the rather false impression that something dramatic has happened in the country in the last eight years of their maladministration, and so they have an entitlement to another term. This cannot be bought again by the electorate.

Source: Daily Statesman