As covid-19 pandemic grows in Ghana, Akufo-Addo’s FSHS image weakens

As the coronavirus pandemic hit the doldrums, President Akufo-Addo looked frustrated about his chances of winning elections.

Nowadays, nobody is talking about free Senior High School (SHS) education-because schools have been shut down, even if he paradoxically decided to reopen them in the absence of cure or vaccines, patronage will fall flat. The plethora of disarray within the inner workings of his party risks more defections in the coming days.

Just this week, Over 75 members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Nalerigu/Gambaga Constituency in the North-East region have quit the party to join the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

They bring to the NDC a lot of secrets, one of them had spoken;

(defector) Peter Wuni Baaga, a former District Chief Executive stated that the 2004 elections which saw Hajia Alimah entering Parliament for the first time was allegedly a stolen verdict masterminded by him.

But the president’s team is far from being concerned about the growing internal conflicts. In a precursor to the previous elections which brought President Akuffo Addo to power, people who choose to defect have done nothing for which the NPP can classify as risky.

What is written on the wall is the contemporary annexation of Flagstaff House by Former John Mahama for which the party is scrambled to fend off I guest.

Policies specially pro-poor ones adopted by this government are hitting the rock bottom particularly due to the novel coronavirus hardships, which nobody can downplay.

In the meantime political benefactors in the office of the Former President have started to dig craters into the much-touted higher rates of coronavirus recoveries in the country.

One of them Mrs. Bawah Mogtari, a trained lawyer who served as a Deputy Transport Minister under the John Dramani Mahama administration, had questioned how it was possible for 790 persons to recover from the virus in 24 hours after the Ghana Health Service released the updated figures that showed that the said number had recovered from the virus.

But critics replied to her, one of them, a presidential advisor on health, Dr. Anthony Asare has started, he would rather want the populace(her) to be excited and continue to support efforts to stop the spread of the disease.

On the monitory front, the government is cash bridled wanting to spend the Heritage Fund after having received 1 billion US dollars from the IMF under a special arrangement programs-zero interest.

A renowned economist working with the University of Cape Coast, Professor John Gatsi has stated that the country’s debt level is too high and to add salt to the soup, many people in the elsewhere Mahama regime are asking for proof of the infrastructure and social services for which the monies were borrowed under the current government.

The underlying conditions in Ghana today are the hardships and accumulated dissatisfaction risked sending this government into opposition.

The problem is far and challenging, all around the country people are feeling the hit of hunger and poverty.

Self-employed businesses are ruined, millions of them have been drastically affected and they might certainly put the blamed on the Flagstaff House for not providing them reliefs.

Critics are questioning why the government did not make cash transfers to citizens after it collected 1 billion US dollars from the International Monetary Fund(IMF).

They cited the Togolese regime who provided her citizens with direct cash transfers as an example.

Looking at the announcement from Flagstaff House which launched the much-touted 600 million stimulus package for small and medium scale businesses hoping to reach 18000 businesses remains very doubtful.

In Ghana, political configurations and backdoor control of resources are centered around political leanings “and NPP ranked first in this” according to analysts.

Ethnicity, nepotism, and favoritism has become the character of this government according to critics.

After the declarations at Flagstaff House, of the said 600 million cedis, it appears as if life is about to retain to normal tomorrow but not yet.

To end with, many critics are calling on the government to clean itself of bias by ensuring adequate regional distribution of the 600 million cedis and to take steps to implement a cash transfer to the vulnerable using the Ghana Card data, failure could cost electoral fortunes!

By Godknows Tsenuokpor