A member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has urged Ghanaians to be patient with the President as he is committed and determined to fix the socio-economic challenges that he inherited from former President John Dramani Mahama.
Razak Kojo Opoku in a statement said it is important to point out that, majority of the challenges that people are putting pressure on President Akufo-Addo’s administration to fix were the problems caused by the former administration.
It said the Akufo-Addo government has fixed most of the problems he inherited from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in his first term, and most definitely on course to fixing the rest of them in his second term.
He said the NPP government has done so well to help reduce unemployment in the country by creating millions of jobs for Ghanaians under programmes, policies and initiatives.
He highlighted the Nation Builders Corps, One District One Factory, NEIP, Micro and Small Loans Company, YEA, Planting for food and Rearing for food and jobs, One Constituency One Ambulance, Business Resource Centres, Recruitment of thousands of nurses, teachers and other professionals staff at the various state institutions and government agencies as some of the fixes President Akufo-Addo has done.
He said the five-year prolonged dumsor problem under the Mahama’s administration resulted in the collapsing of thousands of businesses, loss of jobs, and investments, whereas, the current routine maintenance and replacement of old equipment was aimed at finding lasting solutions to the energy challenges in Ghana.
The statement said under Mahama’s administration, the banking and financial industry completely collapsed and through the prudent and competent management of President Akufo-Addo’s administration, over ¢21 billion was spent to clean up and save the banking and financial industry which helped to save millions of deposits in the various banks and currently witnessing the lowest rate of borrowing.
It said the increase in debt stock since President Akufo-Addo took office had been kept under 100 per cent unlike the Mahama’s administration where the average was kept at 255 percent and over GH₵10 billion was spent every month to service the national debt which was more than the amount set aside for Government recurrent expenditure.
The statement said ‘galamsey’ was one of the serious issues that President Akufo-Addo inherited from the previous administration and in his first term fully committed himself to addressing the Galamsey issues but some NDC leadership during the 2020 Campaign frustrated the efforts of President Akufo-Addo in the fight against Galamsey
It said several kilometres of Roads, major interchanges, and railway infrastructure were under construction and at various stages of completion under President Akufo-Addo’s which were evenly distributed across the Country and allowances for Teachers and Nursing trainees which were cancelled by the Mahama’s administration have been fully restored by Akufo-Addo’s government.
The statement said the National Identification Project (Ghana Card) which was abandoned by the Mills/Mahama’s administration has been fully implemented by the Akufo-Addo’s government and had formalized the Ghanaian economy through digitalization and digitization policies of which several benefits were made from the digitalization and digitization including but not limited to Mobile Money Interoperability, Paperless Port, Digital Addressing System, Zipline Medical Drone System, digital 5/90 and 959 Lottery Platform, etc.
It said President Akufo-Addo’s government has ensured the proper and effective management of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis through the free distribution of water and electricity to Ghanaians for several months and availability of Covid-19 Vaccines to Ghanaians and had also managed the Policy and Inflation rate to 14.5 and 10.3 per cent which were 26.4 and 16.4 per cent respectively under the Mahama’s administration.
The statement added that President Akufo-Addo’s government further enriched multi-party democracy and freedom of speech through the passage of The Right to Information Act 2019(Act 989), aimed at deepening press freedom, free speech and free access to information and through President Akufo-Addo declaration of “Be Citizens Not Spectators” Ghanaians has regained total confidence and free to express their views on national issues. without fear or favour.
It said Judgement debts which were the avenue for creating, looting and sharing under the Mahama’s administration were blocked under President Akufo-Addo and had helped to educate millions of Ghanaian children through the implementation of Free Senior High School policy.
The statement said the concerns and expectations of Ghanaians were legitimate.
Razak Kojo Opoku said President Akufo-Addo was not sleeping on his job, “in fact, he has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that, he is committed to addressing the concerns and expectations of Ghanaians. Let’s support President Akufo-Addo to succeed with our patience and tolerance.”