The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has
dared Vice President Kwesi Amissah Arthur to a challenge with its running mate
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, following his recent lecture on the true state of the
Ghanaian economy.The NPP’s Policy Adviser for the 2016 elections, Boakye
Agyarko, threw the challenge to Mr. Amissah Arthur, a former Governor of the
Bank of Ghana, when he addressed a news conference today [Monday], to respond to
the promises in the NDC’s manifesto.
The news conference was dubbed
“Promises made, promises broken”. The Vice President after Dr. Bawumia’s report
had been under pressure to respond to the issues as an
economist.
Although there had been reports that Mr. Amissah-Arthur was
going to hold a counter lecture; that never happened.
Speaking at the
NDC’s manifesto launch in Sunyani, the Vice President announced that he had been
advised not to respond to Bawumia through a lecture, but do so on political
platforms.
‘I’ll destroy Bawumia’s lies one by one’ – Amissah Arthur
At the manifesto launch, Mr. Amissah Arthur described Dr. Bawumia’s
analysis of the economy as “spurious lies”, just as had been described by many
government appointees, although the government is yet to respond to the lecture
much more comprehensively.
“Part of my problem is that, they [NPP] want
to bamboozle us to make us believe what they are saying is true. What they are
saying is false. Through this spurious analysis, he [Bawumia] cannot tell us
that in the 8 years of Kufuor’s rule, there was a 459% increase in GDP… If even
the economy grew by 8 per cent a year, you only double that GDP in 9 years… It
is not possible. I have decided that everywhere we go, I will take one of his
lies and explain to you why they are lies,” the NDC running mate
said.
But Mr. Boakye Agyarko said “Nobody in the NDC has been able to
come out to deny these facts that were put out by our Vice Presidential
Candidate two weeks ago. We are still waiting for Vice President Paa Kwesi
Amissah-Arthur to attempt a defence unless of course it’s still
raining.”
“Instead, what we have seen are panic reactions all over, for
the Vice President to threaten to respond and then recoil, for the President to
hastily address the nation in a two-hour broadcast to effectively launch the NDC
manifesto four days before the scheduled launch. The future under another Mahama
term would indeed be bleak. From their own resource allocation for the next four
years, the likely scenario is that we are very likely not to have any money to
pay salaries next year.”
Don’t fall for Mahama’s ‘phantom promises’ –
NPP
The party has thus asked Ghanaians not fall for the President
John Mahama-led National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) “phantom promises” ahead of
the December polls.
“The fact that remains to be disputed by the NDC and
cannot be disputed is that President Mahama has destroyed whatever little
performance credibility that he inherited from his predecessor. And, the Mills
performance itself was a retrogression on the Kufuor years. It is with one eye
on this abysmal performance of the President that the voters of Ghana must view
the credibility of the long list of promises delivered at the weekend from a
Government that has no policy credibility and had to run to the IMF in 2014 for
some limited injection of credibility from that external body.”
“If Ghana
is in crisis today, then we hate to warn you that Ghana faces a catastrophe
under a future Mahama government. If he could not care, when he knew he still
had to go back to the electorate for another re-election mandate, then imagine,
just imagine, how very insensitive and even more uncaring he would be if given
another four years after which he doesn’t need to go and beg the electorate.
There will be plenty trouble.” |
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