The Minority Leader of the 5th Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu says the 100 days of President Mahama’s leadership are not sufficient to assess his performance.
To him the pending election case in the Supreme Court may have also contributed to the President’s inability to address the economic challenges.
He said, in an interview with Peacefmonline.com, that it would not be enough to pass judgement on the competence of the President barely 100 days in office.
However, he was of the view that the current administration has not been truthful to Ghanaians on the state of the nation.
According to him, the government has sought to propagate untruth about its activities.
He debunked claims that the Mahama administration is the first government to have possibly constituted its cabinet members within hundred days.
He stressed that “there’s been a lot of propaganda going on that oh, the first 100 days, the President has constituted his ministerial appointment. That clearly is not true”, disclosing that similar events took place during the regimes of former Presidents Rawlings and Kufour.
He also accused the government of mismanagement and overspending of the nation’s resources; something the New Patriotic Party (NPP) sought to clarify in its true state of the nation address.
The government, he stated, dabbled in an unbridled over expenditure and therefore plunged the nation in deficits.
The NPP therefore “exposed government; the unbridled over expenditure, the deficit in the system, the gross mismanagement that we unveiled at the time.”
“Fortunately, it surprised a lot of people. Government had indicated that they were solving some problems relating to our energy situation. Again, we exposed government; let every Ghanaian know that within four years, they have not added anything,” he stressed.
Another area that the government has thrown dust into the eyes of Ghanaians is the energy sector where he said, the current administration stated, it had boosted power generation in the country but to him, it is a palpable falsehood.
He revealed that the government only added 2 megawatts to the power facility in Upper East Region but the large chunk of work in the energy sector was done by the Kufour government.
Though he would not entirely write off the efforts of this government, he was however dissatisfied with the government’s approach in enhancing the progress of the energy sector.
He said the government has failed to resolve the perennial power fluctuations and water shortages that have beset the citizenry and believed the pending election case in the Supreme Court may have also contributed to the President’s inability to address the economic challenges.
He therefore hoped the case would soon be dealt with “and after it has been adjudicated on, we can move forward as a nation knowing what consequences that may flow from the judgement of the Supreme Court.”
“If you have a matter against you in the Supreme Court…It may be difficult for you to be at full competence…”, hence the need to relieve President John Mahama in order to function well.