NPP Warns NDC

Posted: Daily Guide |www.dailyguideghana.com
Thursday, 07 October 2010
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has criticised the upsurge in the use of foul language by some members of the Mills administration.

It wondered why senior government officials and functionaries of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) had developed a penchant for insulting political opponents and people they disagreed with.

A statement issued and signed by Communications Director of the party said it had observed that the NDC government had adopted a culture of insults and indecent language in public discourse, describing this culture as primitive and completely unhelpful.

Deputy Minister of Health Rojo Mettle-Nunoo is reported to have described the action of striking nurses and midwives at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi as a “complete nonsense” since according to him “they have not even written their residential exams to become nurses and midwives, they are interns so if they think their allowance is not enough, they should fight for that instead.”

“…It is different if you are working with someone and he decides to top up your allowance…It is nonsense for them to go to the Labour Commission because they are not (officially) employed and they do not have appointment letters,” he added.

The NPP said it found some of the remarks from government functionaries as reprehensible because “it pollutes the environment for national debate and hurts the country’s image internationally.”

It would be recalled that Dr. Tony Aidoo, director of research and monitoring at the Office of the President, recently described Christians who spoke in tongues as “mad people.” Speaking in tongues is a spiritual (Christian) way of communicating with God. It is referred to by scholars as glossolalia.

Meanwhile, Mr. Mettle-Nunoo has since said he was not aware that his comments were live on the airwaves of the Kumasi-based radio station.

“The phone dropped, I thought the line had cut so I was talking to some people in my office and I think I must have been heard on air. I was not in the specific context of the interview talking to them in that kind of language. I was extremely frustrated,” he told Citi FM yesterday.

The NPP wants government to spell out their strategies for improving the lives of Ghanaians in order to engage them on those strategies and offer alternatives since it believes that is the least political leadership can do for the country.

It has thus asked government to focus on how to solve the several challenges facing the country instead of engaging in trivialities because the livelihoods of ordinary people were being destroyed by the unavailability of basic amenities including LP Gas whilst parents are anxious about the re-opening of school for SHS students.

“There is discontent on the labour front. Businesses (of both formal and informal sectors) are suffering because purchasing power and consumption have dropped. The list is endless,” the NPP said.

With all these problems at stake, the statement said, “What Ghanaians are expecting from government are clear policies and measures to address the rising cost of living and worsening living conditions in the country.”

Instead, it said, the NDC misled itself when it imagined that by insulting its political opponents, the electorate would think better of them and think less of those political opponents. It added that “Ghana needs contest of ideas between government and those who seek to govern; not insults.”

The party’s Communications Director stated that they would not be dragged into this unproductive culture of insults but would also not relent in their efforts to keep government on its toes, stating “we will continue to criticise government when necessary and to appeal to Ghanaians for the opportunity to govern and improve our previous and better performance (compared to what is happening now).”

They have thus asked members of the Mills administration to govern with a high sense of decorum and not insults.

Mills Boys Attack Nana

Posted: Daily Guide |www.dailyguideghana.com
Wednesday, 06 October 2010
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
A group of National Democratic Congress (NDC) serial callers who identify themselves as the Media Analyst Group (MAG) met a stiff opposition from a journalist when they attempted to wage what some people have described as a ‘dirty propagandist war’ against the Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo.

This was when the MAG, which has Accra-based legal practitioner Chris Ackummey as one of its leaders, organized a press conference at Kwesi Pratt’s Freedom Centre in Accra yesterday to outline a host of reasons they thought Nana Addo was not fit to be President of ‘Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana’.

Their emphasis was what they admitted in a statement read by Peter Ahmed Quarshie to be ‘speculations and supposed text messages’, which were sent to people by some faceless individuals and group of persons during the 2008 electioneering campaign.

Some of the messages alleged, among other things, that Nana Addo was addicted to alcohol and some illegal substances.

The group blamed Nana Addo for his supposed inability to exercise control and proper upbringing of one of his four daughters, Mary Fummy Gyankroma Akufo-Addo who was reported to have run her car into that of the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Paa Amissah-Arthur last August and was subsequently charged for drunk driving.

They therefore asked, “If Nana Akufo-Addo has four daughters and if he cannot manage the upbringing of only four daughters, how on earth can we entrust the destiny of Ghana’s youth into his hands?”

But minutes after they finished addressing the press, Managing editor of the Bilingual Free Press newspaper, Alhaji Abubakar Mohammed Marzuk sought to know the essence of the press conference since he did not see it as something worth considering for an intellectual discourse.

The journalist did not understand why MAG said Nana Addo was not fit to rule the country, especially when most of the reasons they gave for their position was based on the actions of his 31-year-old daughter, a person old enough to take responsibility for her actions and inactions.

“I was expecting you to do a responsible analysis, out of which you will tell us that Akufo-Addo personally is proven to be a drunkard or proven to be a man of immorality. You have counted all the allegations,” he said.

As a group that claims to be media analysts, the Alhaji Marzuk said, “Contrary to your sense of analysis, you have just laid a very obvious contradiction.”

This, he said, was evident in the claim by MAG that a beach party was organized by Nana Addo at the La Pleasure Beach, where they alleged young men and women got drunk, smoked marijuana, sniffed cocaine, and had indiscriminate and unprotected sex, and the place was littered with condoms, “meaning there were still instances of protected sex.”

He asked, “How do you reconcile the two?” saying, “At anytime at all you come to raise these critical issues, the analysis must be responsible, must be critical, must be positive and must be concrete.”
The leadership of MAG did not challenge the editor’s criticisms of its analysis.

Meanwhile, aide to Nana Akufo-Addo Herbert Krapa, says what the NDC and MAG were doing confirmed their level of frustration in the Mills’s administration and the fact that they lacked ideas to manage the country to achieve the aspirations of the people.

This, according to him, was the reason they had resorted to such vile attacks on the personality of Nana Addo and those around him.

“If they think that they can be in office and fool the people with dirty politics, then they should know that they have more to lose than the NPP.”

“Our lawyers are looking at the document and what action has to be taken will be taken,” he said, adding, “but If the NDC feels that they are going to be re-elected by re-enacting a campaign of lies, insults and vilification, then the Good Lord and the majority of Ghanaians will show them the answer on election day.”

Mr Krapa said Nana Addo’s credentials in the various positions he had occupied in private and public service spoke volumes and that it would not be for the NDC or any of its groupings to tell whether he was fit to be President or not since Ghanaians would be the better judges in 2012.

According to him, Nana Addo was always guided by the three things that determined who could become President of Ghana or not, that is the “God Almighty, the Constitution of Ghana and the majority of the Ghanaian people.”

Mpiani takes a swipe at government

Posted: Daily Guide |www.dailyguideghana.com
Tuesday, 05 October 2010
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The former Chief of Staff under the erstwhile Kufuor administration, Mr Kwadwo Mpiani has described the renaming of the Jubilee house to Flagstaff house as “very funny”.

The Flagstaff House, which once housed Ghana’s first president Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, was rebuilt into a Presidential Palace and renamed Jubilee House by ex-president John Kufuor when the country celebrated its 50th independence anniversary in 2007.

Although it has not been officially confirmed, indications are that the Jubilee House built by former President Kufuor would be restored to its original name, the Flag Staff House. A metallic inscription to that effect has been embossed on the wall of the Presidential edifice.

Speaking to Citi Eyewitness News on Monday, October 4, Mr Mpiani said the name Flag Staff is not part Ghana’s history since that name was bestowed on the residence by the Americans. Mr Kwadjo Mpiani took a swipe at the Atta Mills-led government for what he sees as an attempt to obliterate the legacies of ex President Kufuor.

“How did we get Flagstaff House, who named it Flagstaff house, I hope you know the history of Flagstaff house, it is not part of our tradition or anything, it was named by the Americans during the war when they had their offices there. It wasn’t anything named by Ghana or Nkrumah or by any Ghanaian”.

“Nkrumah’s old residence is still there, the president took the decision that we should preserve it as part of the whole complex so that it could be sort of a tourist attraction so people can even go there and look at where the first President even lived…you know there is something funny going on in this country, we sit there and we hear assemblies renaming, facilities renaming because these facilities were named in Kufuor’s administration and we all sit there as if nothing is happening…I mean this thing is funny”

Asked whether there was any legislative instrument during the renaming of Flag Staff house to Jubilee House during the Kufuor administration, Mr Mpiani said he is unaware whether such legislative procedures were followed.

“I am not aware of that, I don’t know of any such legislative instrument”

Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister for Tourism, Kobby Acheampong, says the name Jubilee house was unnecessary because there was no legislative instrument to that effect.

According to him since the renaming of the Flag Staff House to Jubilee House under the Kufuor administration was done by the word of mouth, the name Flag Staff still holds.

“The fact of the matter is this the flagstaff house was the original name and when the new Presidential complex was built the name was supposedly changed to Jubilee house, go into our records, there is no legislative instrument that allows that to be made. It was done by word of mouth and as long as it was done by word of mouth the name flagstaff house still remains”.