Veep Blasts Foot Soldiers

Posted: Daily Guide |Thursday, 15 April 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

VICE PRESIDENT John Dramani Mahama is obviously not happy with how party foot soldiers want to determine the direction of the country with their continuous agitations.

He even struggled to find appropriate words to describe the kind of foot soldiers that exist in the country.

According to him “the kinds of foot soldiers we have in Ghana are different. They will want to join the party to help to you get into power but once the party gets into power, they must be served first”.

He believes that the kind of foot soldiers in Ghana “have no sense of sacrifice”.

This was when he had the opportunity to speak at the launch of the Centre for Freedom and Accuracy (CFA).

Whilst appreciating the fact that the issue of foot soldiers is a problem that faces all political parties, he wondered the extent to which they have taken their activities and operations, demanding the removal of government appointees without cause.

“In my mind, a foot soldier or cadre is one that is prepared to sacrifice for the organisation in order to keep the fortunes of the organization, either by continuing to win political power alike”, he said.

The Vice President therefore wondered why some of these so-called foot soldiers, particularly in the NDC ,have become an albatross on the necks of successive governments to the extent that they even want to determine who is to be appointed to a particular office and who should be sacked or not.

“If you wake up and foot soldiers demand that everybody in an appointed office under a previous regime must forcibly be removed by locking up NHIS office, locking NYEP office, locking up all kinds of offices and ejecting people; then you the foot soldiers get appointed, then you must know that you have a 4year mandate”, he noted.

Vice President John Dramani Mahama also expressed worry about the growing trend of businesses collapsing whenever there is a change in government because of the often quoted phrase “he is not one of us”.

“As long as the political pendulum continues to swing and they exact their pound of flesh on indigenous businesses or even foreign businesses that we perceive not to be our political allies, we would have nothing to show for it”, he explained.

Whilst he admitted that the party’s manifestos are produced for electioneering, he noted that “once you win an election and come into government, your party manifesto does not become the national vision of the party, but once the party gets elected, they must translate that party manifesto into a strategic policy direction or into a vision that the whole nation can buy into”.

Based on that, he stated that everybody can help push the vision forward, “so as quickly as possible, manifestoes should be translated into strategic visions that the whole country can buy into so that we can as one move forward”.

For this reason, the Vice President stressed the need for all political parties, businesses and institutions like the Chambers of Commerce and the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) to diagnose the problem and come out with a prescription to insulate businesses from collapsing every time there is a change in government.

On his part, former Presidential Spokesperson, Andrews Awuni, who happens to be the Executive Director of the Centre for Freedom and Accuracy (CFA), said the organisation is dedicated to the promotion and defense of free enterprise everywhere and especially in Ghana.

The CFA looks forward to working with government and the corporate community to deepen the culture of free enterprise in the country and remove residual doubts and suspicions about the private sector.

Nana Goes Mad

Posted: Daily Guide |Thursday, 15 April 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The 2008 Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has denied spurious allegations in a section of the media that seek to link him to a supposed attempt to prosecute Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, his main contender in the party’s flagbearership race.

Nana Addo described as baseless, allegations in yesterday’s editions of both the Insight and Enquirer newspapers which suggested that “some people from the Akufo-Addo campaign team have handed over some highly-damaging documents to the current Attorney General which may lead to the prosecution of Mr. Alan Kyerematen”.

According to him, he has no control over an NDC Attorney General who had made it a point to criminalise the administration in which he was part and parcel.

A statement issued in Accra yesterday and signed by Mustapha Hamid, Head of Communications at Nana Akufo-Addo’s office, expressed dismay at what he described as a crude attempt by some media houses and political forces to use his (Akufo-Addo’s) name in their scheme to cause division and confusion within the ranks of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

This follows a similar allegation by an Ashanti regional officer of the NPP that a potential ‘flagbearer’ had conspired with the current Attorney General to ‘engineer’ the prosecution of certain named former officials of the NPP administration.

Nana Akufo-Addo therefore noted with emphasis that nobody in his office or campaign team has any document or any other evidence to facilitate any prosecution by the Attorney General or anybody else, stressing that “this is just another baseless allegation by those who have always seen his leadership as a threat to their own selfish or sectional interest”.

The 2008 presidential candidate of the NPP insisted that he has no such influence over an NDC Attorney General, who even recently, alleged falsely that he haunted her out of office; and neither would he wish to exercise any such devilish influence.

“As a man who has spent the last 35 years fighting against all forms of injustice in Ghana and as a founding member of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Akufo-Addo would be the first to fight against any form of political persecution,” the statement said, stressing that many of the lawyers defending the former NPP government officials are products of his law firm, Akufo-Addo, Prempeh and Co.

As a cabinet member of the erstwhile Kufuor-led administration, Nana Akufo-Addo is convinced that he and his colleagues served this nation to the best of their abilities, with the best of intentions and with the greatest sense of integrity and honesty.

For this reason, he noted that “if the NDC has evidence to the contrary, let them prove it but through due process” and not to engage in vile propaganda and persecution.

It noted that “as a founding member of the NPP and its first National Organiser, Nana Akufo-Addo spent time, effort and resources to help build this party from scratch and would be the last person to contribute to its dismemberment”.

Moreover, Akufo-Addo seeks to lead the NPP, as its presidential candidate to victory in 2012, the statement said, asking rhetorically, “So how could he seek the dismemberment of a party he seeks to lead to victory?”

In this regard, Nana Akufo-Addo called the attention of the rank and file of the NPP to the fact that it has always been in the interest of the NDC to sow seeds of division within the NPP since “the NDC knows that with its current rate of incompetence in managing the affairs of the state, it faces rejection in the 2012 polls and would wish to compete against a disunited NPP”.

As the NPP prepares to elect its presidential candidate on August 7, 2010, he urged each and every supporter of the party to stand firm and be guided by the paramount need to maintain the cohesion and unity of the party for the greater competition ahead in 2012.

“The good people of Ghana and the rank and file of the NPP should treat this false allegation with the contempt it deserves,” the statement emphasised.

JJ’s Boy Jabs Minister

Posted:Daily Guide |Wednesday, 14 April 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Ras Mubarak
Deputy Information Minister Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa has incurred the displeasure of a leading youth activist of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mohammed Abdulai Mubarak aka Ras Mubarak.

Mubarak, a known Rawlings apologist, has now channeled his energies from complaining about President Mills’ apparent non-performance to Ablakwa for supposedly threatening to expose him (Mubarak).

The NDC youth activist told DAILY GUIDE that “after accusing me of being bitter about the Youth Congress, which of course didn’t hold, they have shifted gears to something completely nonsensical.”

Over the weekend, Okudzeto-Ablakwa was reported to have made certain comments on an Accra-based radio station, Radio Gold in which he allegedly described Mubarak as selfish, thereby attributing his incessant criticism of the Mills Administration to his inability to secure a scholarship to do his LLM at the Strathclyde University in the United Kingdom.

The comments by the deputy Minister have angered Ras Mubarak, who described Okudzeto-Ablatwa’s comments as “hopelessly naive”.

“What the junior minister doesn't understand is that, if someone were a teacher, a nurse or a driver, and the cost of living went up, that teacher or nurse wants something to change. If someone worked hard, and got their hands dirty and government reached deeper into their pay pocket, that person would want change.

If people can't get commodities like gas, stable electricity, they want something to change.”

He indicated that “if government cuts spending on higher education, and freezes scholarship indefinitely, I want something to change”, asking rhetorically, “Is that what he calls selfish interest?"

Ras Mubarak rather put the cap of selfishness on the deputy Minister, indicating that Okudzeto joined NDC from New Patriotic Party (NPP) because of what he wanted to gain.

“This is a lad who quit the NPP because he claims the party denied him opportunities,” he noted, emphasizing that “Ablakwa didn't stay to fight against the system that blunted opportunities for people like him.”

Instead, he noted, Ablakwa did not only jump ship but abandoned the NPP and came to join the NDC and therefore wondered who between the two of them could be more guided by selfish interest.

For this reason, Ras Mubarak said “Ablakwa needs some education on logic” since “you join a cause because you believe it can best advance a particular interest or ideology you subscribe to. People go on strike because the issues affect them or their friends and family.”

“This is common sense. This is someone who is so bereft of ideas he can't answer a straight question. My question is; how much has government spent on higher education? How many graduate jobs has government created since it assumed office?” he asked rhetorically.

He also denied claims by Presidential Aide Nii Lantey Vanderpuiye on Citi FM that he saw him (Mubarak) in Kumasi trying to mobilize some youth to protest against the government, describing it as “big fat lie”.

Mubarak said he only got back into the country from Amsterdam on Monday, April 5, 2010 and could not have been in Kumasi at the time Nii Lantey claimed he was mobilizing the so-called youth, stressing that he has not been to Kumasi since January this year and has not attended any gathering involving NDC members in months.

Instead of addressing the several concerns he has raised, including the issue of “government being slow in spite of the fact that even the Finance Minister thinks there's got to be a sense of urgency; government has abdicated spending on higher education and as a matter of fact has mothballed spending in critical areas.

Government hasn't taken the issue of public sector salaries seriously - and this is one of the major reasons for corruption in the public sector”.

Mubarak noted that Ablakwa and some syndicated journalists he described as “attack dogs” have resorted to politics of personal attacks.

Over the last couple of months, Mubarak has had cause to raise issues about cuts in public sector budget at a time the economy needs an injection of capital, and the NDC’s alienation of public support because the likes of Ablakwa cannot even articulate government's successes and policies but turn to International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to exacerbate the country’s problems.

He believes that Ghana’s dependency on IMF and the World Bank support is a major strategic vulnerability since these institutions create the agenda in which the world's poor must live.

He wondered why and how a nation like Ghana would circumscribe its future to these institutions, stressing that “I voted for a break from the past. I voted for opportunities.

A nation like Ghana should not leave its future in the hands of the IMF and the World Bank as we have done over and over again.”

The NDC youth activist noted that “the challenges we face give us a great moment of opportunity to help Ghanaians, and if Professor Mills is unable to rise up to the challenge, someone might have to step in and save the party.”