Opinion: On Vice-President Bawumia’s List of 40 Achievements of the NPP – Part 1 by Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, Ghana’s Vice President

We have already discussed the landmark fee-free Senior High School Akufo-Addo policy initiative , so in this column, we intend to take up a couple of the other 39 policy achievements of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that were recently and auspiciously highlighted by Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia for the benefit of those cynical critics of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in particular the desperate political opportunists and kleptocrats of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (See “Bawumia Lists 40 Achievements of NPP within 2 Years” Modernghana.com 12/31/18). These bullet-pointed achievements are what the key operatives of the Communications Team of the ruling New Patriotic Party must be focused on throughout the watershed year of 2019, if Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP are to be handily retained in both the Jubilee House and Parliament House come December 2020.

Asia 728x90

On the question of the restoration of the Teacher-Trainees’ Allowances, what needs to be underscored is the fact that the summary and unilateral withdrawal of this age-old policy initiative by the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), predictably, did not engender or bring about the anticipated revenue savings which the previous regime claimed would enable it to better upgrade other aspects of the nation’s public education system. To be certain, under the Mills-Mahama and subsequently the Mahama/Amissah-Arthur regimes, the quality of public education in the country had gotten worse. But, of course, it was not difficult to figure out why. The previous regime was simply about the ungodly project of indiscriminately looting and divvying up the taxpayer’s money among the unconscionable and grabby Mahama Posse, which was why it did not come as any surprise for the citizens of Ghana to wake up one morning and be rudely confronted with the painful and scandalous knowledge that during the four-and-half protracted years that President Mahama held the reins of governance, and the repeated claims by executive operatives of that regime that the nation was operating on a shoestring’s budget, some Mahama cabinet appointees who also doubled as Members of Parliament were, in fact, liberally taking home double salaries with the full knowledge and complicity of then-President John Dramani Mahama.

So far, the Ghanaian media has maintained a deathly silence regarding the fact of whether, indeed, the former President had also taken home a double salary on a regular basis. We also learn that some of the criminal suspects had opened double bank accounts under different aliases on which they had also created two separate signatures to make it seem as if these were separate accounts belonging to two different individuals. This abject display of disrespect for our Teacher-Trainees by the leaders of the National Democratic Congress pretty much informs the threat by former President Mahama to “review” the fee-free Senior High School Policy Initiative, on grounds that the latter is not fiscally sustainable in the long haul. Well, actually, it is not that the fee-free SHS’s progressive policy initiative is not sustainable in the long haul; it is just that progressive policy initiatives such as the fee-free SHS leave little room for the unconscionable drawing of double salaries and other forms of kleptocracy or white-collar and/or executive acts of criminality verging on the wanton embezzlement of the Ghanaian taxpayer’s money.

Of course, tacked onto the abrogation of the Teacher-Trainees’ Allowances was the equally critical Nurse-Trainees’ Allowances which were also cut off by the Mahama regime. You see, the faux-social democrats of the National Democratic Congress have yet to fully appreciate the fact that, in terms of significance or vitality, after food production or agriculture in its various forms and branches, the two most significant aspects of our national life are health and education. Progressive-minded Ghanaians can simply not afford to have a gang of pathological political thugs inordinately fixated on stuffing their wallets and bank accounts at the expense of the collective well-being of the Ghanaian people, return to power to conduct business as usual.

We are fast nearing the middle of the Twenty-First Century, the magical age of the Drone Delivery of Medical Supplies, where the reckless importation of broken-down vehicles in the name of the upgrading of our National Ambulance System, as contracted by former President Mahama, has absolutely no place. You see, the summary and unilateral abrogation of the Teacher- and Nurse-Trainees’ Allowances was eerily and strikingly akin to the criminal act of rape on the part of the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress. Its sole aim and purpose was to teach the targets and/or victims of such violation the real location or font of power. It is neither about love nor friendship. It is squarely about the fact that in the mindset of the leaders of the National Democratic Congress, the lower-middle class and the average working-class Ghanaian citizen have absolutely no say-so or plate at the dinner table of national decision-making. It is as simple as that.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

The views expressed by this author remain solely their own and are not to be taken as the view of the Editorial Board of www.africanewsanalysis.com,  www.zongonews.com and ZongoNews Media Group