Address was empty — Minority Leader
The Leader of the Minority in Parliament, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has described the President’s State of the Nation Address as empty and a rehash of last year’s address.
Advertisement
He told the Daily Graphic that the President had virtually repeated all the promises he made when he appeared on the floor of the House in 2013 and which the government had failed to fulfill.
He said last year the President had promised to begin the construction of 200 community senior high schools (SHSs) and some health facilities in deprived communities but failed in those endeavours.
This year, he said, President Mahama had made the promises all over again and raised the issues he had raised in the last address.
“It shows we are not moving forward as a nation,” he said.
He said the President, in yesterday’s address, had promised to embark on some development projects which had not been captured in the budget.
That, he added, was a sign that the government would spend outside the approved budget and saddle the nation with a bigger budget deficit.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu also wondered why the President did not make any remark about the judicial arm of government in his address.
He said it remained to be seen whether the numerous directives given by the President in his address would be carried out by his appointees and public service workers.
Unimpressive address
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Bekwai, Mr Joe Osei-Owusu (NPP), said the President’s address was not impressive and only recounted the problems confronting the nation.
The President, he said, failed to lay bare the measures to address the problems, adding, “If we wanted anyone to recount our problems, we would have sought the assistance of lecturers.”
According to him, the President sought to trumpet a so-called “fight against corruption” when actually what he had succeeded in doing, in the past year, was to “take small steps targeted at small fishes”.
He said if the President really wanted to fight corruption, he should have dealt with the “big fishes” named in the Savannah Accelerated Development Agency (SADA) rot.
No substance
The MP for Nsawam-Adoagyiri, Mr Frank Annoh-Dompreh, said the address lacked substance.
He said President Mahama did not announce enough measures to strengthen existing social intervention programmes such as school feeding, the National Health Insurance Scheme and the capitation grant.
He intimated that the policies put in place in the past year, such as the introduction of new taxes, were panicky and not pro-poor and said he had expected the President to announce new measures to lessen the burden on the poor but that never happened.
With regard to the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, he said the figures put out by the President were questionable.
“In my constituency, for example, people are unable to access the LEAP,” he said, and added that the President needed to state his source of figures.
In the agricultural sector, he said, the figures pointed to the fact that there had been a retrogression and noted that the measures announced by the President to address the problem were not far-reaching.
“The President cracked too many jokes and was too casual for my liking. I did not see a President who is serious about addressing the problems confronting the nation,” Mr Annoh-Dompreh said.
Advertisement
Full of promises
A former First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Mr Freddie Blay, said he was disappointed with the address, which he described as “a long descriptive statement full of promises”.
He said instead of addressing pertinent issues, President Mahama rather took “cheap shots” at the opposition as if he was on a campaign platform.
“He took cheap shots by saying ‘All die be die’. If he is campaigning, he can do that, but this is the sessional address. That statement could have drawn negative reactions from the Minority,” he said.
Mr Blay said corruption was endemic in the country and the prosecution of some officials, which the President alluded to, was “mere window-dressing”.
Advertisement
“There are leakages in the system. Sole sourcing is going on. These are the issues he should be addressing,” he said.
According to him, the measures initiated to deal with the economic crisis were not adequate and said the government needed to address the problems of excessive borrowing and spending.