NPP Falls on Own Dagger CAMPAIGN PROMISES FRIGHTENS GOVERNMENT -President, Ministers are Sleepless

Perhaps, true to forecast by Minority Leader, Hon Haruna Iddrisu that, the Akufo-Addo-led government will choke with credibility problems honoring its otherwise lofty campaign promises; the President and his appointees are already reported developing cold feet as expectant electorates demand fulfillment of the promises.  
 
Though Akufo Addo has shakily given assurance his government will honour all promises it made ahead of the December 2016 polls, the President, his Ministers and party officials have begun gnashing teeth over the enormity of meeting the expectations of Ghanaians.
 
Reliable information available to The aL-hAJJ indicates that, President Akufo Addo and his appointees are quivering over fulfilling their own campaign pledges some of which they have openly admitted is giving them sleepless nights.
 
The Akufo-Addo led-NPP government is already battling how to halt the fast depreciating currency, the cedi, recurring debilitating power outages, popularly known as “dumsor” and the increasing high cost of living especially, in the last two months.
 
Section of Ghanaians are beginning to question government’s assurance to address these age long challenges in the short to medium term after the cedi, which was relatively stable against major currencies the whole of last year; has depreciated by 6 percent in the last two months with dumsor also rearing its ugly head.
 
While government is still struggling to address these critical challenges, Trainee Nurses and Teachers, Contractors owed by government and parents of Senior High School students among others are also uncompromisingly breathing on the neck of the president to meet his obligations based on which, they voted for him in the last election.
 
Other Ghanaians expecting government’s proposed one million dollar per constituency, one-village one-dam, One-District One-Factory, DKM customers, the scrapping of energy sector levy, reduction in electricity tariff and transport fares, reduction in Corporate tax from 25% to 20%, and 3% Special import levy among others have also been pushing government to kick start the processes leading to their implementation.
 
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta has already said government will not scrap the Energy Sector Levy contrary to what Mr Akufo-Addo promised Ghanaians during the 2016 electioneering campaign.
 
According to him the levy will be needed to “extinguish” the web of debt in the energy sector. “On the banking industry, we have just gone through a period in which the Ministry did not have a clear bird’s eye view of what the SOEs were doing…We need to be engaged in any of these commitments that these SOEs have or sign…So, the banking industry we have ESLA [Energy Sector Levies Act] etc. I think those will gradually move to extinguish those debts,” the Minister told Parliament.

As the Akufo-Addo-led government’s first 100 days in office fast approach, the President and his appointees, this paper has gathered, are becoming jittery and have resorted to mapping out strategies to moderate negative reactions from Ghanaians who may want to vent their spleen.
 
When the President was heavily criticized for leaving out most of his campaign promises in his maiden State of the Nation Address in late February, Minister of Information, Mustapha Hamid and government spokespersons said those pledges would be addressed in the budget statement.
 
However, when the Finance Minister presented the budget statement for the 2017 fiscal year on the 2nd of March, most of the campaign promises were again not captured. The NPP’s promise to pay all arrears owed contractors in 100 days, pay all customers of DKM, reduce corporate tax from 25% to 20%, reduce import duties on raw materials and machinery for production, reduce drivers’ insurance levies and cost of driver’s license; and instant reduction of electricity tariffs and transport fares were all not captured in the budget.
 
This has left many wondering if President Akufo-Addo and his government are still committed to delivering on these promises.
 
To downplay anxieties of Ghanaians, deputy General Secretary of the NPP, Nana Obiri Boahen is reported to have stated that he will quit politics if the Akufo-Addo government fails to deliver on its mouthwatering campaign promises.
 
And perhaps, in order to moderate reactions of Ghanaians to government’s delay in meeting its obligations, Senior Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo Marfo has been busily reminding the electorates that the Akufo-Addo government has a four year term to deliver on its campaign promises.
 
Obviously reeling under pressure, the former Akim Oda MP who may have forgotten the pressures his party, the NPP, then in opposition, put on the outgone Mahama led NDC administration to fulfill its promises, is also quoted as saying “every political party has a four-year cycle. We have done a one-year budget out of four, so, if I make 10 pledges and in one budget I fulfill six and [then] you say I am running away from pledges?”
According to the Senior Minister, the manifesto presented by the NPP is a four-year manifesto and going forward “we will tackle other problems. If anyone thinks that all the pledges by government will be fulfilled in one year, then you are being utopian”.
 
While the government in a dramatic fashion has drastically altered its flagship policy, Free SHS, limiting it to first year students and without clear source of funding; Education Minister, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh recently confessed; the implementation of the governments planned free SHS is giving him sleepless night.
 
Though the Minister was uncompromising on his stand on the policy, he was perhaps, awed by forecast by the pro-Vice Chancellor of University of Cape Coast, Prof. George Kwaku Oduro that the policy will fail if steps are not taken to ensure quality.  
 
“You get to so many schools, particularly those in disadvantaged context their labs are empty…they don’t have libraries. So if access is given through free SHS and these schools remain with empty labs and empty libraries then it compromises quality,” he argued.
 
President Akufo-Addo himself has also confessed to having sleepless nights over how to redeem his numerous mouthwatering campaign promises to avoid incurring the wrath of ‘impatient’ Ghanaians as he foresee difficulties implementing them.
 
Speaking at a press conference to introduce his ministerial nominees for the ten regions, the President was blunt in admitting that things are not rosy as he would have wished to bring the kind of transformation he promised, assuring that “…but I’m a firm believer in the statement that when times are tough, the tough get going.
 
Though government officials will not openly admit that they have been taken aback by the enormity of task ahead of them, they are said to be discussing it among themselves on the quiet and at meetings.
 
Reacting to the budget statement, the Minority in parliament accused the Akufo-Addo administration of running away from the campaign promises it baited Ghanaians with into voting for them.
 
Exposing government’s shifty stance on its proposed free SHS, Minority leader, Hon Haruna Iddirsu said “There was clear deception in the budget statement read by the Finance Minister yesterday regarding the much-trumpeted Free SHS programme. President Akufo Addo insisted during the election campaign that he would make SHS education instantly free for ALL JHS graduates once elected.”
“What this simply meant was that at least an amount of GHc3.6 billion would be provided for in the budget to cater for the needs of an estimated 840,000 SHS students due to be in school in the 2016/2017 Academic year.Paragraph 575 of the Budget Statement however paints a completely different picture and tells a tale of total deception. The paragraph in question states that ONLY first year students in the 2017/2018 academic year, whose number is given as 467,692 at page 102 of the budget will benefit from the programme,” he added.
 
The Minority leader also accused the Finance Minister of hiding behind “rigidities” to launch an aggressive raid on statutory funds by proposing in the budget statement to cap statutory fund payments at just 25% of revenue in order to remove ‘rigidities’ in their allocation.
According to him “this is only an euphemism for the diversion of badly needed money from the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF), GETFund, NHIS, GIIF etc, to finance the ‘One this! One that!! campaign mantra of the NPP. This goes contrary to their campaign promises which cemented the view and raised hopes that these promises were to attract new and additional funding.”