Tarzan Pooh-Poohs Budget: It�s Oburoni Waawu

If Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, the Finance Minister, had presented the government�s 2010 Budget as the thesis for his well-earned Doctorate degree, the examiners would have thrown it out and charged him with plagiarism, says former Chief Executive of the Ghana @ 50 Secretariat, Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby, aka Tarzan. Dr. Wereko-Brobby has likened the said Budget to a piece of second-hand clothing commonly referred to as �oburoni wawu� and is claiming further that the two Budget Statements announced by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government since it assumed office in January this year is a carbon copy of the policies and deeds of the government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) from 2001-2008. �Let me state for the record that unlike others in the NDC hierarchy, the Dr. Kwabena Duffuor I have known for many years is not one that will lend himself knowingly to plagiarism. However, I also do know that he is one that will concede and accept good ideas and solutions even if they did not originate from him or his fellow bedmates. �So it is that my dear brother finds himself in the uncomfortable and incongruous position of having to represent the policies of the NPP government, which his now NDC bedfellows had condemned vigorously and violently in opposition, as the magic wand of change that would bring about a better Ghana,� Dr. Wereko-Brobby, stated in a 2127-worded thesis he has authored on Ghana�s 2010 Budget Statement. His thesis has it that �the substance of the charge of the plagiarism of the 2010 Budget Statement starts from the very theme chosen for it, �Growth and Stability�, which is nothing more than a cryptic form of the theme of the 2007 Budget of the NPP government, titled �Growth within the environment of Stability�. �Once the thesis is copied, what follows is nothing short of policy for policy regurgitation of what the NPP government had already begun in its tenure in office. For example, the flagship social programme announced in the 2010 Budget and the provision of proper classrooms for children currently studying under trees, are projects that were introduced in 2004 by the late Kwadwo Baah Wiredu when he was Minister of Education and continued throughout the second term of the NPP Government.� Dr. Wereko-Brobby sated that �the NDC�s game of substituting the NPP�s policy clothes with �buroni waawu� ones started with the branding of its 2008 Election Manifesto. �Investing in People and Investing In Jobs� was the title theme the NDC chose for its 2008 Manifesto. Unfortunately, the party failed to tell Ghanaians that it had plagiarized that phrase from the NPP�s 2006 Budget Statement (presented to Parliament by the indefatigable Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu on Thursday November 10, 2005), under the theme, �Investing in People; Investing In Jobs��. He mentioned the policy of biannual renewal of vehicle lenience plates as contained in the 2010 budget as one that was a brainchild of Hon Joe Osei-Owusu, former Chief Executive of the DVLA and one that was originally introduced by the NPP government and whose implementation was very far advanced, just awaiting the installation of hardware to facilitate the full computerization and update of the vehicle registration records. Tarzan also pointed out that it is the NPP�s National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) that has been christened the Youth Employment Service (YES) in the 2010 Budget whiles the Community Protection Scheme introduced by the former administration and commonly referred to as the �Kufuor Police�, has been re-introduced in the 2010 Budget as the Community Policing Intervention. �On the key social sectors of water provision and construction of roads, the 2010 Budget continued to pour old wines into new bottles and tried to present these as new vintages. The Koforidua water project, started in May 2008 and was originally due for completion this month, has been presented as one of the new initiatives for improving the quality of water supply to the people. Similarly, the WA water project, for which negotiations were completed and contracts signed during the NPP�s tenure of office, is also dusted off and presented as something new. Likewise, Kpong Water Expansion II, of which in Ghanaian parlance, plans are far advanced, are also clothed in brand new second-hand fabric and passed off as new,� the thesis stated.