Former President John Dramani Mahama has lashed out at the government for what he describes as the slow pace of development, saying the government has failed on a majority of its promises to the citizenry.
Addressing a gathering of NDC members at Somanya after the party’s 6th unity walk aimed at reorganizing the party ahead of the 2020 elections, the former President said the government had failed in fulfilling its promises on many levels, including paying road contractors working on various projects across the country.
“NPP promised the moon but has not even delivered clouds and so it makes your goodwill dwindle so fast …I know that when we were here, we were working on asphalt upgrading roads in Somanya and Odumase. I saw the contractor’s asphalt plants parked by the roadside and you will be surprised that for nearly two years the contractors have not been paid their money and so the work has come to a standstill, ” the former President complained.
Mr. Mahama further stated that the NDC lost the 2016 elections due to apathy within its ranks.
“NPP did not win that election; we[NDC] lost it because apathy was created in our ranks. Many of our people said they will not come out and vote.”
He therefore called on teeming party supporters to eschew acrimony which contributed to the party’s defeat, and forge ahead for victory in the 2020 elections.
“If you take the 2016 elections, we lost more than 1 million votes. It means that many of our supporters refused to come out and vote. I want to apologize to everybody to forget about what anybody did to you. It might have been your party Chairman, your party secretary. It might have been me. I want to apologize.”
Mahama slams gov’t over ‘high cost’ of fuel
The former President also criticized the Akufo-Addo government for its inability to stabilize the price of petroleum products to the satisfaction of Ghanaian consumers.
Mr. Mahama warned that the high price of fuel, particularly Liquefied Petroleum Gas, had long-term degrading effects on the environment because of the cheaper, but more destructive alternative of charcoal.
“We were told that it [petrol] was too expensive and that 50 percent of the petrol was made up of taxes alone and that when they win and come into office, they would remove the taxes so that petrol will [be cheaper]. Today petrol is selling at GHc 22 per gallon.”
“I am even more concerned about LPG because LPG was about GHc40 before December 7. Today LPG is more than GHc80. What it means is that for those who cannot afford LPG, they will go back to using charcoal and we all know the implications of using charcoal. When you use charcoal, it degrades the environment and so government should do something about the price of LPG particularly,” the former President stated.
Source:citifmonline.com