Even before The National Democratic Congress (NDC) assumes the reins of power, Prof Naana Opoku-Agyemang, former President John Mahama’s running mate, has dropped the hint that the umbrella party will go after those they suspect to have looted state coffers.
Speaking at her official outdooring in Accra on Wednesday, this week, the former Cape Coast University don said she and her boss, John Dramani Mahama, had already discussed and settled on the issue of prosecuting those who have stolen from the state.
“John and I have agreed that whoever has participated in the plunder of the state must be held accountable. This is not a threat, it is a promise, premised on the wishes of our citizens across the various political and social divides and hinged on the principle of accountability,” Prof Naana Opoku-Agyemang said, amidst applause by the party faithful who had gathered at the University of Professional Studies’ auditorium.
She accused the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government of being ethnocentric, nepotistic and peerage political fraternity, masquerading as a capitalist political group.
“Let us face the facts: The promotion of ethnocentric elitism masquerading as intellectualism; nepotism cloaked as know-how; weakness strutting as courage and crony capitalism masked as development in freedom; shameless hypocrisy acting as objectivity… these never served a country determined to make progress at any level,” she said.
Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang also accused NPP of economic mismanagement, coupled with environmental degradation among others.
“Rather, the most significant achievement of these things has been a country in near insolvency, its natural resources such as water and land and environment in rebellion, a people harassed and intimidated into numbness and as some say cynically, bribed into silence.”
In the face of these challenges, she said President Akufo-Addo is also prejudicing a topical corruption case involving a minister, wasting of public funds in the name of National Cathedral, among others.
“Scandals surrounding the PDS, Australian Visas, Kelni GVG, BOST Contaminated Fuel, Excavators and ‘Aboboyaa’ tricycles that can fly swifter than guinea fowls (nkonfem), or the loss of some GHc 60.8bn at a Central Bank, or unfulfilled promises of one village one dam, one million dollars per constituency per year, 350 secondary schools from scratch and too many betrayals”.
She told NDC stalwarts and sympathisers that “A multi-million-dollar dugout, I don’t know about you, but the image I get looking at the trench is that of a hole in utter shock that anyone could believe was intended as a thanksgiving gift to the Almighty, Invisible, God Only Wise.”
On her nomination as the running mate for the NDC, she noted that John Mahama loves and believes in the capabilities of Ghanaian women, hence her nomination.
“I see your choice as an affirmation of your belief in the capabilities of the Ghanaian woman. I will repay your abiding confidence with loyalty, understanding and a devotion to duty. My output, going forward, by the Grace of God, will continue to demonstrate what the world knows already, that women are also capable of high achievements, that we do so with that reservoir of strength, determination and mental acuity that only those who are noble and far-sighted can comprehend and contend with.”
On the policies of the NDC, Opoku-Agyemang noted that the foundations of the policies of the NDC would thrive on consensus building – from observation, study, analysis through vigorous debates that tolerate all views, to an agreement on the options at hand and end with well-thought-through implementation plans. The benefits of such an approach inure to all nation, community and individual, necessarily in that order.
According to her, the policies of the NDC would highlight the critical processes that would lead to innovations and flexibilities of the brave, timely and intentional intervention of a 24-hour economy as proposed by H.E Mahama, after consulting widely with stakeholders and citizens across the country.
“It is a vision anchored on the firm belief that with the right policies and incentives in place, we can inspire a new generation of enterprises to adopt a multi-shift work system and wider participation in the economy, thereby ushering us into a new golden era of Ghanaian industry,” the NDC running mate said.
By the time the policy is in full flight, we will see how from the vegetable seller to the miner, from the smallest hamlet to the crowded cities, from the farmer to the fisherfolk, from the young couple to the single parent, everyone will come to see and apply the benefits of a 24-hour economy for national, group and individual advancement,” she added.
