He says that in the highly unlikely event of him and his National Democratic Congress (NDC) being returned to Jubilee House, Mr. John “European Ai
He says that in the highly unlikely event of him and his National Democratic Congress (NDC) being returned to Jubilee House, Mr. John “European Airbus Payola” Dramani Mahama intends to cause the summary abrogation of the Electronic Transactional Levy Act (or E-Levy) that went into effect on May 1, 2022 (See “A New NDC Gov’t God Willing Will Cancel E-Levy – Mahama” Modernghana.com 5/3/22). What Ghanaians need to worry about are not the Akufo-Addo-implemented policy initiatives that Mr. Mahama has vowed to abrogate or completely scrap but, rather, what the former President intends to replace these seminal social-intervention policy initiatives with. But even well before we delve into such electioneering-campaign humbug, what Ghanaian voters first need to do is to thoroughly review the governance performance record of the Fourth-Republican leader who collapsed more public and private enterprises with Dumsor than any other postcolonial Ghanaian leader in recent memory.
You see, as President, Kwame Gonja Akonfem-Kanazoe Ouagadougou, as Mr. Mahama is also popularly known and called, smugly and pontifically told Ghanaians that the then-Candidate Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s proposed Fee-Free Senior High School Policy Initiative, presently the Fee-Free Senior High School System, was the veritable pipedream of a desperate politician who was hell-bent on grabbing for power at all costs. Even more importantly, the then-President Mahama told Ghanaian voters and citizens that the Fee-Free Senior High School Policy Initiative had been tried and tested in dozens of other Continental African Countries with absolutely no success. Now, what Ghanaians ought to be asking themselves is whether the country is better off with the landmark implementation of the Fee-Free Senior High School Policy Proposal or we are worse off for the auspicious and timely implementation of the same.
In a scandalously devious and preemptive attempt to take some of the steam and credit off the edge of the Fee-Free Senior High School Policy Initiative, the then-President Mahama hastily and haphazardly cooked up something called the Gradually Fee-Free Senior High School Policy Initiative and projected the construction of some 200 of his so-called E-Block physical plant facilities across the country. Well, by the close of his four-and-half-year tenure, partly occasioned by the death of President John Evans Atta-Mills, of course, by all reliable accounts, the Maham-led government of the National Democratic Congress had only constructed 40 of these buildings or physical plant facilities, barely about only half of which could be legitimately and credibly said to have been completely equipped with WIFI or pedagogically conducive Information Technology (IT) systems or facilities.
You see, the 40 E-Blocks, out of the 200 facilities that the then-President Mahama promised to construct in the four-and-half years that he held the democratic reins of governance, come up to barely 20 percent of the fulfillment of his electioneering-campaign pledge in this sector of our national development. But even more significant to point out is the fact that the overwhelming bulk of funding for the Mahama E-Blocks were “windfalls” donated by foreign governments and charitable donor agencies. Now, what this means is that left to its own devices, the Mahama government could not have raised even half of the capital resources needed to construct even the diddly 40 E-Blocks that Kwame Gonja and his National Democratic Congress’ Abongo Boys boasted about having completed.
We must also highlight the fact that the mere removal of the E-Levy by a highly unlikely second Mahama regime or administration would do absolutely nothing to enhance or improve the industrial development of Ghana, thereby significantly adding onto the creation of employment opportunities for our young talented and able-bodied citizens. You see, unlike President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, former President Mahama had absolutely no preplanned industrial development policy agenda or initiative during the four-and-half years that the Bole-Bamboi native, from the Akufo-Addo-created Savannah Region, was Chief Resident of Jubilee House. He did nearly everything ad hoc or in an after-the- fact fashion. But guess what, Dear Reader? As of this writing and press preparation, the legendary “Little Man from Kyebi” had completed at least 107 industrial projects and physical plant facilities under his landmark “One District, One Factory” national development policy initiative. These quality-of-life-improvement initiatives are what make Ghana economically livable, prosperous and able to maintain its enviable edge over the rest of her neighbors in the West-African/ECOWAS Subregion, not the mere removal of a visionary and an economically progressive tax-policy initiative that is aimed at further significantly improving the quality and living standards of the Ghanaian people and citizenry.
Then also, we need to highlight the fact that an apocalyptically defeated Presidential Candidate who suspended his badly faltering electioneering campaign in order to vigorously and shamelessly and recklessly promote the environmentally destructive activities of Galamsey or illegal small-scale mining activities, in the cynical name of the woeful inability of the Central Government, including his very own previous regime, to create adequate job opportunities for our largely undereducated and unskilled youths, cannot be trusted to progressively and healthily take Ghana up to the next stage or level of its socioeconomic, industrial and technological development. You see, the major problem with Mr. Mahama and most of the vanguard operatives of the National Democratic Congress is that these leaders – for want of a better terminology – have absolutely no worthwhile vision and knowledge for the development of Ghana, besides misguidedly envisaging the erstwhile Gold Coast Colony as a rich mine quarry to be blindly, recklessly and wantonly exploited for their own cabalistic or Mafiosi interests.
In essence, the Mahama Posse has absolutely no comprehensive, organic or cohesive sense of civic responsibility. The $ 72 million (USD) SSNIT Heist, engineered at the Social Security and National Insurance Trust by its politically sponsored and motivated administrators and the extant Labor Minister, namely, Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, the present National Democratic Congress’ Parliamentary Minority Leader, and, you guessed right, Dear Reader, then-President John “European Airbus Payola” Dramani Mahama, involving the hard-earned lifesavings of retiree and hardworking Ghanaian civil and public servants, pretty much offers the most striking leadership profile of the vanguard operatives of the National Democratic Congress. Which is why when Supreme Court Justice Jones M. Dotse asserts that with the leadership of the National Democratic Congress, “It is all about creating, looting and sharing” of the collective wealth of Ghana among themselves, their local and foreign collaborators and sponsors,” the strikingly dead-on-point observation of the Hohoe native, from the Volta Region, and University of Ghana Law School-educated legal light cannot be impeached.
*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
May 3, 2022
E-mail: okoampaahoofekwame@gmail.com
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