Political power, very much often, is hugely contingent on policies and programmes which have the potentiality to impact positively on the lives of the masses. These policies and programmes often find themselves in the manifestos of political parties during electioneering campaigns.
To this end, a political leader seeking to find favor in the eyes, hearts and minds of the electorate must laboriously ingrain his planned policies into the people for them to make an informed choice regarding the party and candidate they would wish to lead them.
For reasons that appear to be grotesque, a former president of the Republic of Ghana who, for obvious reasons, desires to feed his insatiable appetite for power, is touring the entire country with a message that inspires only his immediate family and the sycophantic elements who surround him.
Mr John Dramani Mahama has affectingly propagated his position on Akufo-Addo’s pro-poor Free Senior High School programme which has unburdened parents of the huge cost they have had to incur in sending their children to secondary schools.
The former President has, on several occasions, made his intentions clear on the policy. He has said that it is a tragedy to waste GHS2 billion on only Free S.H.S and that it is draining the coffers of the country. To him, a different but less expensive module should have been adopted to school our children.
It is of great importance that I mention the fact that the NDC, led by Mahama, paid for over forty advertisements all targeted at dampening the spirit of Ghanaians in the Akufo-Addo-invented Free S.H.S progamme. To him, Free S.H.S is but a tragic waste of our resources.
Hypnotized by the sheer support and popularity President Akufo-Addo’s Free S.H.S policy enjoys, former President Mahama has had to change course. He now says that Free S.H.S is here to stay, and that it cannot be downsized by any regime.
To Mr. Mahama, the policy must be reviewed and if he is given the nod at the polls in 2020, he would go to great lengths to have it reviewed. When asked what sort of review would he subject the policy to, Mr. Mahama confidently stated that he would assemble stakeholders in the education sector to brainstorm and come out with recommendations as to how best to run the system.
Mr. Mahama, without over-stretching the imagination, tells us that he has nothing concrete to put forward as to the way forward and that all his criticisms of the policy have been anything but constructive. He has no alternative solution for the policy but has been cacophonously lampooning it. The review he talks about will yield empty results judging from his empty-mindedness as regards the policy.
Another jigsaw puzzle that has become synonymous with Mahama’s review phraseology is his take on the banking sector reforms. Mr. Mahama predictably assures Ghanaians that his review technic will be applicable to the cleaning methodology adopted in the banking sector.
He contends that the method chosen by the Akufo-Addo administration in partnership with the Bank of Ghana which has seen some banks believed to be heavyweights and smaller ones collapsed while depositors are being saved is not worth pursuing.
Mahama insists that a few thousands have lost their jobs due to the Bank of Ghana’s approach and that they could have retained their jobs if the GHS13 billion injected into the sector had rather been given to the struggling banks to shore up their capital.
With this, Mahama holds the position that the over 1.2 million Ghanaians who had deposits in those banks do not matter and that it would amount to nothing if they had lost their deposits. The claimed 50,000 employees of the collapsed banks should have been prioritized above the 1.2 million depositors.
Mr. Mahama, it must be emphatically pointed out, supervised the collapse of the banking sector. He sat aloof while the sector was being run down by his own people. The only solution, to him, was to pump in more cash to those banks which would go ahead to mismanage them once again.
John Mahama is, at one instance, questioning the Akufo-Addo administration over the decision to refrain from pumping in more cash to those struggling banks and in another instance, proposing that he will set up a committee with people well versed in the banking and financial sector to come up with the best module to use to sanitize the system.
In effect, Mr. Mahama’s solution to anything he considers to be a challenge confronting the country is a review. He is like to review every single item he believes is not working. The manifesto of the opposition NDC should be titled, “Manifesto of Reviews”.
Experience, we are told, is the best teacher. Having led the country for eight solid years, John Mahama should not be struggling proposing alternative ideas to help move the country forward but not to hinge his policy directives on reviews. Ghana is better off without an inexperienced former Vice President/President of the Republic of Ghana.
P.K. Sarpong, Whispers from the Corridors of the Thinking Place.