Former Minister for Trade and Industry, Ekow Spio-Garbrah, has lamented the manner in which President Nana Akufo-Addo keeps ignoring contributions of former President John Mahama to national development.
Mr Spio-Garbrah was of the view that the President’s attitude towards the former President is not the best.
Mr Spio-Garbrah’s compliant follows President Akufo-Addo’s conspicuous denial of efforts put in by Mr Mahama in the completion of the 20-storey Secretariat building of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
President Akufo-Addo on Monday commissioned and handed over the Secretariat of the AfCFTA to the African Union Commission, at a brief ceremony, at the Africa Trade House.
Delivering a speech at the ceremony, President Akufo-Addo credited two former presidents Jerry John Rawlings and John Agyekum Kufuor and former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings.
The Asantehene, Otumfou Osei Tutu II and the Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyeremateng were also duly acknowledged. But no mention of former President John Mahama was made.
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The very building that would house the secretariat was begun and finished from the ground floor to the 20th floor during the tenure of President Mahama at the time that I was the Minister for Trade but nobody bothered to mention that in the three-hour-long programme which hosted diplomatic corps, he stated.
Government should not forget that this is an international organisation for the whole of Africa and so must not deny any credit due the previous administrations for their contributions, he added.
Speaking in an interview with Kumasi-based Angel FM, Mr Spio-Garbrah said the AfCFTA initiative is not one that must be politicised and so the government should not make it look like it is one of the usual New Patriotic Party-National Democratic Congress political football games.
Apart from President Rawlings who may have been invited as a former Head of State, I do not know whether they invited President Mahama and he did not honour it, but I know that if they did, he would have told me to represent him even if he was unable to honour the invitation, but I went there on my own volition. Nobody invited me and when I got there they asked me to show them my invitation card, Mr Spio-Garbrah said.