Communicator for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Joe Apenteng has torn into the Great Transformational Plan (GTP) of the Movement for Change describing its leader and presidential hopeful Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen as a personification of hypocrisy.
Mr. Apenteng argues that Mr. Kyerematen cannot claim to have a plan to transform the country when he cannot show tangible achievements in a ministry he headed for six years until he resigned to pursue his failed attempt at contesting for the flagbearership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Mr. Kyerematen who broke away to form the MFC represented by the butterfly, launched what he calls the blueprint for the transformation of Ghana on Monday 24th June, 2024; promising among other things to harmonize taxes, slash public expenditure, and reduce the number of ministers to forty.
The Great Transformational Plan (GTP) further promises to scrap the Council of State, halt the dollarization of the economy, curb borrowing, pursue enterprising economic growth, and increase presidential terms from four to five years.
Discussing its content on Ultimate FM’s Cup of Tea, Joe Apenteng questioned the moral right of Mr. Kyerematen to be making such proposals when he had ample time and opportunity to make such inputs to better the lots of the country while he served in President Akufo Addo’s government.
“Mr. Kyerematen’s hypocrisy stinks. He is a leading member of the NPP who campaigned for President Nana Akufo-Addo in both 2016 and 2020. President Akufo-Addo appointed him as minister of trade just as was predicted and we can assess him on the six years he spent in that ministry.”
He told host Julius Caesar Anadem, “If he has now formed a renegade of the NPP in the form of the Movement for Change, it will be better if he tells us what he achieved in the trade ministry for Ghanaians to consider whether to vote for him.
You were an integral and very senior member of this government and the political party that birthed this government,” he retorted.
NDC, NPP failures
Joe Apenteng expressed his reservation with the manner Mr. Kyerematen lumps together NDC and the NPP, with arguments that the two have disappointed Ghana in their three decades of governing Ghana.
At the launch of his GTP document, Mr. Kyerematen asked Ghanaians neither to retain nor restore the two dominant political parties blaming them for the country’s bad breaks in governance and economic management.
Joe Appenteng contended that the leader of the butterfly movement was being dishonestly crafty with such assertions particularly when he endorsed all the assertions of massive economic transformation touted by Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.
“They keep telling us they have made this economy better. When Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia mentioned his fantastic economic management team, Allan Kyerematen was there. He was sitting on the dais laughing.”
“Alhaji Bawumia mentioned Alan Kyerematen as a distinguished economist. If he is now saying the party is corrupt, insensitive, and knows nothing about governance, he should attack them. He should stop lumping the NDC and NPP together,” he cautioned.
Bitter Alan
He insisted that Mr. Kyerematen’s comments only betrayed deep bitterness about issues of political and electoral machinations that drove him (Mr. Kyerematen) to break away from the governing New Patriotic Party.
“He thought he was entitled to be the flag bearer of the party. He now feels beleaguered about the candidate who paid money to get people to vote against him,” Apenteng asserted.
Public debt reduction
Addressing the promise of the presidential hopeful to halt the unbridled culture of unrestrained borrowing that has landed the government into high debt distress, Joe Apenteng wondered how Ghanaians could trust Mr. Kyerematen who was a key adviser to the same government he is campaigning to unseat.
“We were told that you were the vice chair of the cabinet’s subcommittee on the economy. These unbridled and unrestrained borrowings. You knew it and you had a hand in it. What did you tell them?”
“When the technocrats and the experts were advising the government against this unbridled borrowing, what did you say? You kept mute. Because today you want to become president you want to lump the NDC and the NPP together?” he questioned.
Joe Apenteng mocked how a former trades minister would exit office to tell Ghanaians about his plans to halt the dollarization of the economy.
Launching his transformational agenda, Mr. Kyerematen made references to countries where transacting in foreign currencies was barred and gave assurances he would enforce the same in Ghana.
Joe chuckled, “What did I hear him say? That when he comes to power he will stop the dollarization of the economy. For the six years while he was minister of trade, why didn’t he stop it?”
Reducing government size
Mr. Alan Kyerematen’s promise to scrap the council of state, reduce the size of ministers, merge analogous ministries, and consolidate departments and agencies to cut down costs; also appears not to have gone down well with the opposition NDC.
Joe Apenteng advised the former presidential hopeful to refrain from his attempt to detach himself from the same ills he partook in and benefitted from. If he says he would scrap the council of state, he should have advised Akufo Addo then.”
When President Akufo Addo appointed 125 ministers, he was a cabinet minister. Why didn’t he advise the president against this colossal and gargantuan number of ministers,” Apenteng queried.
He asked that instead of clawing in the NDC into his criticisms, Mr Kyerematen should address the New Patriotic Party which has been in power for the last seven years.
Source: starrfm.com
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