It would be recalled that when the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) organized a press conference in Accra some few days ago, the National Chairman of the Party, Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond was emphatic that the party suspects a deliberate attempt by government to cover up the alleged acts of corruption at GYEEDA. The PPP also asserted that the damning revelation from the report is suggestive of a programme set up to divert state funds into individual pockets to fund the political campaign of the NDC and perpetuate the corruption cycle. Also, the PPP appealed to the president to punish persons cited in the report to have allegedly misappropriated public funds.
The PPP youth consider this call by the party as a genuine concern, for which all well-meaning Ghanaians must endorse. However, it looks like these legitimate concerns raised by our party did not sit well with some individuals within the NDC government. As a result, these aggrieved people have resorted to what they are best known for doing, thus their usual paroxysms and vilifications. But we will not allow ourselves to be beguiled into towing similar irresponsible lines because we are a disciplined party and do not condone such ill-mannered acts. Nonetheless, as young people, we have the responsibility to right the wrong. We are resolved not to sit unconcerned and allow miscreants who have sold their conscience turn all truths into lies.
We, the PPP youth wish to put on record that we are not pleased with the way and manner government officials are dealing corruption issues in this country. We will not allow anybody to reduce grave issues that affect the lives of the people to the gutters. It is quite disheartening that because some people have been given Ministerial positions,they have the impudence to say anything they want without recourse to the interest of the masses.
In the midst of all these apparent crass corruption that has woefully engulfed the current NDC administration and stalwarts; we have Ministers of state like the Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, Joseph Yamin, who would shamelessly question what audacity the PPP has to comment on such critical issues, adding that “what percentage of votes did the PPP get in the last elections. How many are they? The Minister goes further to ridicule the PPP by saying that even students of Prempeh College are more than the total membership of PPP and therefore, we have no locus to question how Government officials are spending our taxes.
We critically consider such reckless statements as preposterous and insulting to the intelligence of Ghanaians in general. Who in Ghana does not know that the PPP is the third largest political party? In any case, it is not surprising at all to hear comments such as these from a person whom one would describe as “a lost ball in the high weeds”. Such people are an embarrassment to government officialdom.
Certainly, such statements can only come from elements within the NDC. We wish to highlight without any apology that not even a class one pupil will say such a thing, not to talk of a Minister, who knows quite too well that the supporters of PPP also pay taxes out of which he is paid between Ghc8,000 and Ghc9000 a month.
It is only in NDC government that you have sector ministers thinking that even in a democracy, it is only those who belong to the government in power that have the right to protest. Assuming without admitting that the PPP was made up of ten people, does that mean that we do not have the right to protest when robbers are blatantly raping this nation? How can a minister make such an infantile statement about the number of people in PPP just because we are demanding for the full disclosure of the GYEEDA report. Even if the PPP has one member, so long as he/she is a Ghanaian, he/she has the right to question things that are clearly not right.
The NDC is clearly telling us that they have no clue about the affairs of governance and have reduced all serious issues in this country to pedestrian talk. Instead of government officials planning of arresting the ruthless corruption that has engulfed their government, they have rather resorted to unnecessary grandiloquent responses and personality attacks that do not put food onto the table of the ordinary Ghanaians. They are so much intoxicated by the sterling achievements of our 2012 flagbearer, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, to the extent that they always prefer to drag his name into any serious discussion so as to divert attention and unjustifiably use it to explain their recklessness, negligence and the thievery. The painful thing about this canker is that, the sad loser is the country, Ghana.
It is as a result of some of these reasons that serious minds have decided not to meddle in Ghana politics because they do not want to be insulted or branded as thieves. But politics or public service should not be considered as an avenue to siphon state resources, amass wealth or insult the intelligence of Ghanaians with impunity. Rather, public service should be seen as an avenue to serve the people whose mandate you have to their advancement. If this does not happen, then it becomes a betrayal of the people’s mandate and particularly, a vicious kind of theft by false pretences.
We are therefore calling on the President to as a matter of urgency dispose of such mediocracies and make way for selfless individuals, whose actions and inactions would not cripple the entire forward march of the nation but rather, make governance productive, attractive and relevant enough to satisfy the interest of the masses.
These sector ministers who have brought the high office of a minister into disrespect must understand that if they are leaders with political power today, they will be forced some day, sooner or later, to give way to common sense and the will of the people. We wish to remind them about Sir Isaac Newtown’s Law of gravity which says that everything that goes up will obviously come down.
The Sun is shining on Corruption and we are wide Awake as Progressives!
Signed:
Divine Nkrumah
National Youth Cordinator
Progressive People’s Party