General News of Friday, 11 January 2013
Source: The Herald
The Executive Director of Danquah Institute (DI) and Publisher of the pro-New Patriotic Party (NPP) newspaper, The Statesman, is not happy with a decision by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to continuously subsidize petroleum prices for the benefits of the citizenry.
“So for how long will gov’t government continue to subsidize fuel at this monthly cost of GH¢120m? He rhetorically questioned, suggesting that Nana Akufo-Addo of the NPP, would have increased petroleum prices had he won last December’s elections three days after taking the presidential oath,.
Mr. Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, a leading member of the opposition NPP registered his displeasure on government’s unperturbed stance on fuel price increment, on Thursday January 3, 2013 on his social media platform, facebook. Fuel price increment is a very unpopular move for any government, especially a newly elected one, and Gabby’s suggestion is seen as one which is to feed into the NPP’s propaganda scheme.
Gabby, is a member of the Akyem Mafia accused of hijacking the campaign of Akufo-Addo, who had the course to campaign against the four-year administration of the Atta Mills government calling it “insensitive” to the plight of Ghanaians. From January 2009 when the NDC led by the late Professor John Evans Mills formed the next government, the leadership and supporters of the NPP launched an unending attack on the government for failing to honour a campaign promise to reduce fuel prices drastically should they win the 2008 elections.
Mr. Otchere-Darko, who last August promised to quit politics by December 31, 2012, but has since gone quiet on the self-made declaration, was one of the many experts in the party, who through his think tank, led the attack on the late President, describing him and his government as deceitful people.
Gabby asked Ghanaians, whom his party claimed the Mills government had visited an unprecedented hardship on, whether they could continue as a nation with the government’s unsustainable decision, adding that the GH¢120 million monthly fuel subsidy, involved, could be channeled other ventures to serve the country better.
“Can we all accept as a nation that it is unsustainable and the money can be better spent elsewhere?” he lamented. Since December.29, 2011, government through the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has refused to increase petroleum prices as this has aided in lessening the burden of hardship on Ghanaians, especially the poor.
It is a known fact that over the years whenever there is an increase in petroleum prices, virtually prices of everything goes up, making living condition a little harder and the government of the day very unpopular.