Judgment Day Is Tomorrow!

After four years of administering this country on an ad-hoc basis, the government of the National Democratic Congress faces its stiffest test tomorrow, when nearly 14 million people go to the polls to vote for the next set of people to be entrusted with the management of state assets and liabilities, particularly, the public purse.

In a way, tomorrow’s vote is a referendum on the administrative competence of the triumvirate of Mills-Mahama-Amissah-Arthur. Four years after the late President John Evans Atta-Mills stumbled on the podium and missed his lines at the swearing in, this government will struggle to pin-point something worthwhile, standing in the name of achievements, in spite of roof-top advertisements of building a ‘Better Ghana.”

The NDC says the party in government has achieved most of its manifesto promises. It points to the successful beginning of academic life at the two universities promised in the Volta and Brong Ahafo regions.

Party officials have beaten their chests for close to four years, claiming to have reduced inflation to single digit, something that has not been achieved in the annals of the contemporary history of this nation.

Much column inches have been wasted in the print media, and air time on radio and television to advertise what party and government officials refer to as ‘Better Ghana,’ supposed to signify the quantum improvement in the quality of life of the ordinary Ghanaian.

Much hot air has been blown on the government building as many as 1,700 schools in its endeavour to remove schools under trees. But, in all honesty, most of these achievements remain phantom, at best. It is true that two new universities have begun offering tutorials to students in Ho and Sunyani, after missing its target for a year.

Even then, most of the structures housing the new universities owe their genesis to infrastructure meant for other purposes, and constructed long before the deceased Prof. Atta Mills won power. The University of Health and Allied Sciences at Ho took over the structures meant for the Ho Nursing quarters.

At Sunyani, the University of Renewable Energy began from premises constructed in the Kufuor regime for the Forestry School, which was a campus of the University of Science and Technology. In a way, the two universities owe their existence to structures that were largely being used for other purposes.

When Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, Deputy Minister of Information, who has flogged the 1,700 schools removed from ‘Under Trees,’ was challenged to produce the list of those schools, he was found wanting. The Presbyterian Church, for instance, took issues with structures belonging to the church that were listed among schools removed under trees.

The single digit inflation remains at best a paper guarantee. It is perhaps only in Ghana, where single digit inflation is recorded at a time the national currency has lost half of its original value. Cost of goods and services, meanwhile, have been rising in treble and quadruple figures.

What most Ghanaians remember most about this administration is corruption, which appears to be the main feature.

From Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome, who succeeded in collecting GH¢51 million of state money without showing any document that the state had any contract with him, through graft in government, this administration has advertised itself as a scandal-soaked administration.

The only party in Ghana, with a propaganda outfit, the NDC could not even be candid with the health of President J.E.A. Mills until he died. Tomorrow’s vote is a referendum on the mal-administration that had characterised four years of lies and misadventure.

Short URL: http://thechronicle.com.gh/?p=49969