When I say the NPP is a sick party, people say I am being harsh.
All of a sudden, to them, the meaning of review means cancellation because President John Mahama has used it for Free SHS. Didn’t NPP then in opposition use “review” several times on their campaign platforms? Did they cancel any of the policies they have reviewed? Don’t they say they have made those policies better? So why should it be a problem for them if JM is also coming to review the Free SHS policy? Who is in his/her right mind will like the double-tracking system of this Free SHS?
When you goggle for the meaning of “review” it tells you that it is a “formal assessment or examination of something with the possibility or intention of instituting change if necessary” Did we see “canceled” in the definition? By the way, didn’t the NPP say they reviewed the Karpower agreement and that they have saved Ghana some nonsense millions dollars? Didn’t the NPP say they have reviewed the interest rate and brought it from 25% to 20%? Didn’t the NPP review the MIDA agreement and said they got 51% local investors and 49% foreign investors? Wasn’t it 20% and 80% respectively?
My fellow Ghanaians, the NPP think you are that stupid. They want to reduce the mess of this Free SHS to “review” and “canceled” so you will lose focus of the main problem with this Free SHS. The main problem with this Free SHS is, what is the government’s policy on all those who will NOT gain admission to the tertiary and other institutions where fees are paid? What is going to be the unemployment rate after Free SHS and what is the exit plan for the NABCO trainees?
These are the debate people should be making before things get worse. Ghana has a looming security threat on hand but the NPP want us to discuss the intake but not the exit plans. Are we waiting for 2021/22 to talk about something that we can see coming? Why is the NPP running away from this debate?
The Free has come to stay and NDC will not cancel it. I will suggest to the NDC communicators to make an emphatic statement on radio and on TV that NDC is coming to make it better and move on to discuss the problems of the Free SHS, including lack of facilities, double-tracking, lack of broad consultations, extra classes and tuition fees for students at home, congestion in schools, lack of quality education, lack of qualified teachers and teacher supervision and many more.
These are what NDC is coming back in 2021 to fix and make the Free SHS better. We should not allow the NPP to lead in this discussion. They would prefer to stay on “review” and “canceled” because they have reached the dead end of this policy. They can’t add anything better to it.
The writer is the Founder of the Diaspora Progressive Movement based in USA.