‘Mills has failed’

The presidential candidate of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in the 2008 general election, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, has chided President John Evans Atta Mills for not living up to his campaign promise of ‘being father for all Ghanaians.’

According to Dr Nduom, the learned professor has failed Ghanaians by reneging on his promise of ‘being father to all’ since all government appointments have been taken over by National Democratic Congress (NDC) cronies leaving out those who do not belong to the party.

He bemoaned the rate at which only NDC members were being put in charge of public offices and other government agencies in spite of the avowed promise by then candidate Mills during the 2008 campaign that he will give equal opportunities to all Ghanaians when elected as president.

“You don’t have to be an NDC member to get a job in this country because Ghana belongs to all of us,” he said.

Dr Nduom was speaking to journalists at Elmina last Thursday, December 7, 2010, after throwing a party for children in the KEEA municipality.

On his assessment of the NDC’s first one year in office, the 2008 CPP presidential candidate said he has not been impressed with the way the Mills administration rushed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank after numerous promises of not succumbing to their policies.

That decision by the government, Dr Nduom intimated, has resulted in the slow motion kind of development in the country for the past year.

The former minister of Public Sector Reforms under the immediate past New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration also attributed the decision of the government to go back to the IMF and the World Bank to the reason why the Single Spine Salary structure was not used in 2009.

In the estimation of Dr Nduom, the NDC government must sit up taking into account the financial and economic problems the country went through last year.

On the issue of corruption, he said President Mills has not done much. He juxtaposed the president’s inability to crack the whip on some of his ministers who, in one way or the order, have some corruption allegations leveled against them.

He said the president did not treat the Muntaka case with all the seriousness it deserved saying the case should have been thoroughly investigated and Muntaka prosecuted if he had been found guilty.

He charged government to enforce strict regulations concerning the oil and gas so as to enable Ghanaians benefit from the oil this year, and also advised government to see to it that the political problem pertaining to the management and distribution of pre-mix fuel was addressed.

The former Member of Parliament for KEEA however described as a good step government’s initiative to assist small scale farmers expand their businesses to promote made in Ghana goods.

STORY: FROM MAGDALENE SEY, ELMINA