At a media interaction on Tuesday in Accra, the Deputy Minister said the Gallup poll actually revealed how the New Patriotic Party (NPP) galloped Ghana into poverty.
He was reacting to Nana Akufo Addo’s recent criticism of Prof Mills’s governance style at the 3rd international conference of NPP in Hamburg, Germany on Saturday.
Mr. Ablakwa noted: ‘What these critics have done is to selectively pick the figures for only 2007 and 2010 and then draw their own conclusion. This is certainly intellectual dishonesty of the highest order and must be condemned.’
According to him, credible statistics, which have been put out by the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank of Ghana (BoG), the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Transparency International and even the Gallup Poll showed that real progress was being made by government in all sectors.
As per the poll, 20 percent of Ghanaians lived comfortably on their income by end of 2007. The figure dropped to 11 percent in 2008, reduced to 10 percent in 2009 and witnessed a further cut to 4 percent in 2010.
On the percentage of Ghanaians who were managing their income, the figure stood at 30 percent in 2007, dropped to 27 percent the following year and 15 percent in 2009 and stepped up to 20 percent in 2010.
It continued that 31 percent of Ghanaians found it difficult to live on their income in 2007, 35 percent in 2008, 44 percent in 2009 and reduced to 41 percent in 2010.
On the percentage of Ghanaians that found it very difficult to live on their present income, the figures showed 11 percent for 2007, 18 percent for 2008, 29 percent in 2009 and 34 percent in 2010.
Mr. Ablakwa said President Mills was sworn into office on January 7, 2009.
‘So in actual fact, only one year of this poll refers to President Mills’ tenure that is from 2009 to 2010.
But the figures are meant to cover all the 12 months of the year. Therefore, with President Mills’s investiture in January 7, 2009, it stands to reason that only 7 days were spent by President Kufuor before handing over power to his successor.
The NDC therefore can be said to be responsible for what prevailed in the country in 2009 and 2010.
The Deputy Minister said: ‘Whereas the NPP made 10% of Ghanaians feel no longer comfortable with their income, the NDC’s is 6%. Whereas the NPP reduced by a whopping 15% Ghanaians who said they were just getting by the NDC has actually positively increased that category from 15% to 20% thus giving more Ghanaian workers hope.’
Also, he added that whereas the NPP increased the number of Ghanaians who were finding it difficult to survive on their salaries from 31% to 44%, the NDC has remarkably reduced that figure to 41%.
‘In the last category of those finding it very difficult to survive on their present income, the figures show that the NPP placed more Ghanaians in this category by a frightening 18% thus from 11% in 2007 to 29% in 2010 whereas during the NDC period it has gone up by only 5% thus from 29% to 34%.’
An excerpt of Nana Akufo Addo’s remarks that sparked the reaction from the minister reads: ‘To put it bluntly, over 8.2 million Ghanaians are saying that they have been delivered a bitter Ghana, instead of a better Ghana.’
Nana Akufo-Addo emphasized: ‘Rather than the current driver of Ghana’s development vehicle President Mills driving ahead and taking the highway to greater freedom and prosperity, the driver has pulled the brakes, turned back, reset the mileage and put back the ‘L’ sign for learner driver.’
By Samuel Boadi
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