SOME TALKING POINTS ON NDC ACHIEVEMENTS

The list of achievement of this government is modest but endless. This government is definitely focused and would not be distracted from its ‘Better Ghana Agenda’ by uninformed and illogical comments. The NPP seem to be soliciting endorsement for their misleading mantra of ‘everything not working in the country today’ and they have targeted people who appear to have some credibility in society but are gullible to prosecute that agenda.
Certainly, the 20 months of the Atta Mills government has delivered on many fronts.

1. For over two years, The NPP led government was unable to pay newly recruited teachers their salaries and related allowances not to mention Railway workers, nurses and doctors. The NDC government of President Atta Mills has addressed these challenges they left behind.

     b. The Atta Mills government is constructing 120 dormitories for schools across the country within the less than two year period it took office.               President Mills takes credit for initiating the process of eliminating the school shift system as well as phasing out the holding of classes under trees. Presently over a thousand new classroom blocks have replaced out of the over 4,000 classes that were conducted under trees during the NPP era.

2. Within these 20 months in office of this government 38 Colleges of Education are being integrated into the Tertiary system. Polytechnics have been accredited to offer Bachelor of Technology degrees, particularly in Science, Technology and ICT; while work has started in earnest on two new universities; one in the Volta Region and the other in the Brong Ahafo Region. In the eight years the NPP ruled this country how many additional universities did they build?

3. The government increased the Capitation Grant by 50% from GH¢ 3.00 to GH¢ 4.50 to support access, participation and quality in basic schools and provided school children with free uniforms and exercise books.
4. Today, the NDC government is constructing additional classroom blocks for 214 SHS in the country to cater for the extension of the Senior High School (SHS) system from three to four years which the NPP introduced without having comprehensive plans to build new additional school blocks to cater for the unnecessary extension they introduced.

5. It is under this NDC-led government that the Tamale hospital is being transformed into an ultra modern Teaching Hospital attached to the University of Development Studies.
6. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) government left behind inflation at 20.1 per cent in December 2008. However prudent measures put in place by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government has reduced the inflation to 9.3 per cent.

7. Data available indicate that total credit advanced to the private sector by the banking sector has moved from GHC4, 238.5 million in February 2008 to GHC 7, 050.1 million in February 2010.
8. The Mills administration has done some good work in the areas of agriculture, with GDP growth in agriculture soaring up to 6.2 percent last year, against a target of 5.9.

9. Work on a 10 million-dollar Shea nut Factory to process sheanuts into Shea butter, Shea oils and other derivatives has commenced at Buipe.

10. Currently, there is more than 30 per cent increase in rice production and five per cent increase in maize production, while sorghum and millet production went up by 20 per cent each. Groundnuts and cowpea also recorded a three per cent growth rate each.
11. The decision of the World Food Program (WFP) to purchase 1,433 metric tons of local rice worth $780,000 is a big relief for farmers and a plus point for the NDC Government.

12. The construction of 500 boreholes for irrigation and agro processing in all ten Regions is in progress, while studies to activate the Accra Plains irrigation project which can irrigate 150,000 hectares have been completed.
13. The second face of the rehabilitation of the Tono irrigation project has been completed and effort to rehabilitate 30 others in the Greater Accra and Volta Region has started.

14. The government has established the National Food Buffer Stock Company Limited (NAFCO) to hold food security and intervene in the market where necessary; to purchase, preserve, sell and distribute foodstuff.
15. The era of the ‘KUFOUR GALLONS’ and the erratic power rationing as well as the long periods of darkness Ghanaians had to grapple with under the NPP led regime cannot be forgotten. Provision of these utilities have grown by ten percent. It is only a hypocrite who would not have noticed a modest improvement in the situation.

16. The NDC government has had the courage to implement the Single Spine Salary Policy. The officers and men of the Ghana Police Service can attest to this.
17. Today the international community is hailing Ghana for being committed to the fight against drug trafficking. During the NPP era Ghana was labeled as a hub for narcotic drugs and was placed in the same category by the international community with notorious drug trafficking countries of the world.

18. With the road sector, it is important to state that the NPP left office without paying monies owed road contractors. It was this current government that had in addition to other payments in 2009, released an amount of 170 million Ghana Cedis for the payment of road contractors. Most of these contractors had pre- financed their contracts with bank loans.
19. Apart from financing the old road projects left behind by the NPP government, Prof Mills, even in the first year of his administration started several new road projects. These include 30 million Euro Awoshie-Pokuase road projects. The 2.6 km Spintex road and the 60 km Adidome-Adiklu-Ho road project Infrastructural development in neglected areas in Mafi Traditional area has also started.

20. There are two hundred and eighty-eight (288) ongoing periodic maintenance and minor works projects under the Ghana Highway Authority. One hundred and sixty-one (161) construction, road rehabilitation works and upgrading works are also being undertaken by the Department of Urban Roads. The Department of Feeder Roads currently has over seven hundred on-going construction works under its purview, with one hundred and fourteen starting in 2009.

21. It must be stated that a number of the roads constructed during the NPP era were so shoddily done that they turn to develop potholes in less than three years of construction. Unlike the Kufour-led government, the NDC led government does not overprice contracts.
22. Again this government paid to the Ghana Commercial Bank a whopping 445 million Ghana Cedis as part-payment for debts owed it by the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR). The Bank was on the verge of collapse, and badly exposed as a result of the TOR debt. It is important to note that the NPP instituted the TOR Debt Recovery Levy, and collected from the Ghanaian people monies far in excess of the TOR debt; yet it left office not properly accounting for the monies collected. It will suffice you to know that the NPP diverted about 15 billion cedis of the monies collected to a handful of journalists and media commentators allegedly to do propaganda for the NPP.

23. The NDC government been a fulfilling government is going according to what it said in its Manifesto (page 86) i.e. to deal with the housing deficit. The agreement between the government and the Korean company is a bilateral one and payment of the loan is also flexible.

24. The STX deal would pump in about 10 billion dollars into the economy and it would also in a way reduce the unemployment situation in the country since the Koreans would use the Ghanaian man power. The local construction companies were not left out of the housing project as it is perceived because the vice president asked all of them to present proposals on the housing deficit.
25. The decision of government to prioritize the security agencies as the first beneficiary of thirty thousand housing units out of the intended two hundred thousand (200,000) housing project is laudable and strategic considering the crucial nature of their services to the stable and peaceful development of our society; as well as the deplorable and demoralizing state in which they are currently housed.

26. It will be recalled that not until the NDC led government took over the reins of governance last year (2009), Ghana, internationally had gained notoriety as a narcotic drug hub to a point that implicated the Ghana Police Service.

27. On the STX deal the NPP made the following allegations:

 a.

28. The government has denied GRADER equal opportunities as the Koreans and that GRADER could do better but GRADER had not submitted any estimates and drawings to back that point.

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d.      Following these allegations you would notice that the NPP were just getting at the government without having the interest of Ghanaians at heart because those allegations were made to score cheap political points.

e.   As a social democratic Party, the NDC is mindful of the need to providing affordable housing for the majority of the Ghanaian people; a position which is in contrast with that of the previous NPP led government which focused on building deluxe houses the least of which was estimated to cost one hundred thousand dollars, targeted at only the rich and affluent in society.

f.   The resources spent on such expensive mansions could have been spent in building several affordable housing units such as the Adenta and Sakomono Flats to benefit majority of Ghanaians. It is in the light of these reasoning that the NDC considers the STX Project laudable.

g.     The NPP’s harsh hostility towards the STX Project is unfortunate but understandable. Anything that should make the NDC favourable and preferred by the electorate must be opposed even when it is of national interest or public good. It was a similar posture adopted by their forebears when the Motorway and the Akosombo Dam were to be constructed in the 1960’s.

28. c.The government is using the oil resource to guarantee the loan for the STX deal (this was countered by Mr. Isaac Osei who reacted by saying the NPP also used the cocoa returns to support the Bui dam project)

28. b.The Korean company is in debt (this was nullified by the information about the company on the internet.)