NPP Should Be Subjected To A Litmus Test Of Credibility � Felix Kwakye Ofosu

Deputy Communications Minister, Felix Kwakye Ofosu says New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer running mate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s 10-point plan to create jobs and reduce unemployment is no plan at all and can best be described in three words - redundant, vague and speculative.

He said on Radio Gold’s Alhaji and Alhaji programme that the NPP itself, given its poor job creation record while in government, lacks the credibility to make further promises of creating jobs and for which Ghanaians should trust them.

He said with the NPP having been in power before, any promise they make should be subjected to a litmus test of credibility, wondering if the NPP as a party does have the credibility for Ghanaians to believe any promise they make in specific areas of national life.

“What have they done before which should give reason for us to believe what they say going forward, even before we come to examine the specific promises that they make? In the area of job creation what is the record of the NPP which would inspire confidence?”

He said an examination of the year 2000 manifesto of the NPP, at page 5, is captured what he described as perhaps “the most extravagant electoral promise” ever made by anybody, when the party promised to create jobs for all, without exception, who were willing and able to work and remunerate them accordingly.

“This was the NPP. In fact they went as far, and you recall Kofi Wayo, at the time Kofi Wayo was with the NPP and stood on a campaign platform at INDADFA and he said that in the first 100 days of the NPP they would create 750,000 jobs.

I’m sure you remember that promise. When they came to power, they took $5 million from one of our donor partners and said they were going to register people who were unemployed. One million Ghanaians turned up to have their names entered into a register of unemployed people with the expectation that they would get jobs. I invite the NPP and Dr. Bawumia to account to the people of Ghana how many jobs they created. Indeed by the time they left office, unemployment had gone through the roof.”