The president, John Dramani Mahama after downplaying the impact of infrastructural development in the country is now beating retreat as he touts his modest but spectacularly inflated projects as campaign tool for re-election.
After rubbishing the monumental achievements by the NPP administration under J.A Kufuor months to the 2012 general election, Mr Mahama surprisingly, is counting on same for the electorate to renew his mandate in the upcoming general election.
The president, also in an infamous statement during an interview in 2008 described as petty any government that will seek for re-election based upon the infrastructure they had put up in the country.
He said such an exercise was an act of ‘mediocrity’, adding the funds for such projects were taxes from the people and not a personal loan from the government.
TOTAL RECALL:
In his 360 degrees turnaround statement, the president said, ‘I think that’s petty and is stuck in the kind of past mentality that we’ve had, that a government’s achievements is based on the infrastructure that it provides’.
According to him, ‘government is supposed to provide infrastructure, but every government adds unto the infrastructure and any that succeeds Kufuor will add on to the wonderful infrastructure that he’s put in place’.
The president posited further in the interview that, ‘a person would be an ostrich to say president Kufuor has not achieved significantly in infrastructure since he added on to what president Rawlings had started as he built the road from Makola to Tetteh Quarshie for Kufuor to continue from that end to Mamfe’.
He noted, ‘and so I think that the challenges facing this country are new and we must not get stuck in the past and talk about comparing, you know, records, and that this election is about comparing records. I think it’s more than that, it’s about what the wishes and aspirations of the people of this country are, you know going forward’.
CAMPAIGN MESSAGES:
Interestingly, while the NPP flag-bearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is touting his vision of accelerated development and job creation as he tours the length and breadth of the country, the president and his appointees are rubbishing same.
While the NDC are saying the plans and ideas by the NPP flag-bearer are lofty and cannot be done, the NPP insists they have a well laid out strategy to put into action all they are promising to do.
The NPP, consistently, have expressed their desire to create an enabling environment to the private sector with tax reductions and stable electricity supply to industry so as to enable them recruit more employees and recoup their investments.
On the other hand, the NDC are insisting they have a firm foundation to put a super structure on, adding no other government possessed the abilities to add onto what they have started.
