Lady Vera Writes: On December 7, Two Options To Compare And Choose From Before You Vote – Part 2

I salute you all wonderful fellow Ghanaians. Another election is just around the corner and once again we will all be queuing to vote for a leader coming this December 7th.

Now here is my concern;

Elections are no more primarily about just a political party, being a supporter or believing in their ideologies, it transcends beyond that to leadership, what can be offered and how they can transform the entire country through systematic, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound policies with you the individual being a pivotal part in terms of its concept, context, and content.

An election is a civil right of all citizens who have attained 18 years and above with a sound mind to select a leader with unique competence to manage the entire nation, bring rapid development, relief to its citizens, and facilitate massive human development.

Elections have consequences on individuals now and in the future directly, indirectly, and therefore the need to think through, investigate, interrogate the background, competence, decisiveness, vision, compassion, boldness, willingness, track record, and the incorruptibility of the person you select.

Ghana’s upcoming 2020 election is not a mere event but a process, where we must all think critically and examine the available options and select a leader who is competent, a leader who does not make spontaneous wrong decisions, a leader who can help his people, a leader who can decide between when to make a decision and when not to, a visionary leader who is firm and fair and a leader who represents the true definition of the word competence in its entirety over mediocrity to positively affect you and the future generation.

One major attribute to look out for in the two main candidates going into election 2020, is their competence. The following are a few points to guide you in your decision-making between the two leading candidates coming 7th December.
 
Personal attributes in terms of the competence of the two personalities
 
Mr. John Mahama and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
 
What is competence? It is having the ability or skill to do remarkable things successfully, efficiently, and effectively while incompetence is the lack of the ability or skill to do or implement things successfully, efficiently, and effectively.
One very important quality all Ghanaians must look out for going into election 2020, among the two main Presidential Candidates is their competence, who has a better track record of competence, who has demonstrated to Ghanaians a high level of competence, whom can we entrust the entire country to with confidence, that he can competently run the entire country for the benefit of all, who can make the best decisions to improve human resource development of Ghana, who can competently industrialize Ghana, who can competently make good decisions to paint our country positive to the entire world and attract goodwill, investment, respect and confidence, the one who can competently get Ghana out of aid, the one who can competently move Ghana along with the world through digitization of our systems, the one who can competently reduce  unemployment significantly in our country, who can competently make decisions to deny himself and develop Ghana beyond aid, who amongst the two is fostering unity, peace and security in our country through his competent utterances, actions and inactions.
 
A few examples on the competence of Mr. John Mahama and Nana Akufo Addo, using Ghana’s educational sector as a case study.
 
And please NOTE the comparison  
 
1. Mr. John Mahama upon gaining power as a Vice President and a President took over a vibrant educational sector and a very good economy at a point when Ghana had discovered oil, come out of HIPC with massive financial relief among many others from international donors, Ghanaians were expecting massive or significant reforms to improve access and quality of education from him but what did he do?

He cancelled teacher-training allowance which supported students from less endowed backgrounds, crippling them completely, why will any right-thinking leader do this, it was probably because he had incompetently run down the economy completely and could not afford to pay the allowances for the thousands of students who were enjoying the facility, this obviously affected continuing students and those yet to enroll, but Nana Addo upon gaining power run and managed the economy competently causing rapid stability and growth and further reinstated the teacher-trainee allowances and has since been operational. Now Mr. John Mahama is all over the place telling the electorates that when voted back to power he will maintain the teacher-trainee allowances, now my question is this, who should manage and expand the economy, reinstate the teacher-training allowances for him to continue, how sure are we that he won’t repeat what he did previously by incompetently running the economy down and further cancelling the allowances again? The choice is for you to make, decipher between the competent and the incompetent one and vote massively for the competent one amongst the two.
 
2. Mr. John Mahama took over a promising educational sector with solid foundation ready for reforms, improvement and expanded system through the robust economy that existed, but upon his election victory he could not introduce any reforms, system or policy to increase access to education, and could not also pay for capitation grant of GH₵ 4.50 per child until he exited power leaving behind a huge capitation grant debt, but Nana Addo on the other hand upon taking over power made education one of his priorities and vision by growing, developing and transforming the countries human resource significantly by the introduction of Free Senior High Secondary education, giving the opportunity for all to attend SHS irrespective of one’s background leading to the astronomical enrollment of about 1.2 million, the first and biggest educational enrollment in Ghana’s history with an additional 219 million dollars to be further invested into basic schools to improve the quality of education under the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project, he further paid all the capitation grant debt left behind by Mr. John Mahama and went ahead to even increase the capitation grant from GH₵4.50 to GH₵10.00, thus 120% increment, this has never happened in the history of Ghana before. Now Mr. Mahama is telling electorates to vote him back to power to continue these wonderful strides he considers choked by Nana Addo, please kindly decide between these two whom you will vote for in this oncoming election. Who among the two is competent enough to handle Free SHS and capitation grant, let us kindly vote wisely to secure our children’s education, the sustainance of the Free SHS depends solely on the choice you make come 7th December.
 
3. Mr. John Mahama after taking over a robust economy that had exited from HIPC, a robust economy that had discovered oil with all other natural and human resources took Ghana to the IMF
for policy and economic credibility leading to the conditionality of employment embargo which saw massive unemployment in the country for many years, teachers were not left out, the few who got the opportunity worked for years without salary, a 3-month-pay policy where one could work for two to three years and only received a three-month salary was introduced then, there was massive backlog of promotion of teachers accompanied by heavy areas,  but H.E Nana Addo upon assumption of power managed the Ghanaian economy competently leading to the exit from the IMF and their crippling conditionalities thus lifting the ban on employment and giving way to massive employment in all sectors including teachers, he further went ahead to introduce professional allowance for teachers, cleared backlog of arrears and promotions, reintroduced book and research allowances for University lectures that hitherto was cancelled by Mr. Mahama. Through this single bold and competent decision by H.E Nana Addo over Two million (2,000.000) Ghanaians have gained various jobs.

Mr. Mahama is now telling Ghanaians to vote him back to power and he will ensure that 250,000 Ghanaians will be employed yearly meanwhile over 2 million Ghanaians have gained employment already with plans far advanced to enroll more. Now between these two gentlemen whom will you entrust your job security to, whom will you entrust your teaching profession to, the time is now for you to decide between the two.
 
4. Under Mr. John Mahama’s Presidency not a single pro educational policy was rolled out but H.E Nana Akufo Addo saw the need to improve the quality of teacher-training, enhance their capacity and improve the professional standards in line with best practices across the globe by the introduction of reforms such as the teacher licensure program, this will give teachers the free hand to have their own supervisory body and recognition among others just like the other professions, teaching must never be a mere mercenary where anyone can just call him or herself a teacher but rather a profession with all that needs to be accorded with, the formulation of teachers housing policy is also currently ongoing, this is to ensure that teachers own their own houses before they retire, H.E Nana Addo is very committed to ensuring quality and relevant education that will produce confident, skilled and global citizens who are digital-technology ready and able to compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world, Mr. Mahama is currently asking Ghanaians to vote him back to power. My question to you is this, whom will you vote for? Who has competently managed and introduced policies to better our educational system? The decision is yours to make. 

 
5. Mr. John Mahama taunted himself with unprecedented educational infrastructure with the vision of putting up 200 educational E-blocks, unfortunately for all the years he was in power he was able to complete just about 23 of them but H.E Nana Addo on the other hand in less than his four-year rule has already built extra 27 of the E-blocks Mr. John Mahama intended to build outweighing the number the initiator Mr. Mahama himself built, additionally Nana Akufo-Addo has provided over 962 infrastructure, being dormitories, dining halls, assembly halls among many, many others on various senior high school campuses to contain the high SHS enrollment with more underway. Again tens of thousands of furniture, mattresses, and about 858 vehicles, increment of the number of libraries under the management of Ghana Library from 61 to 82. The highest ever expansion of the library network since independence and employed 191 Ghanaians to work in public libraries as well as renovation and stock of existing ones. Fellow Ghanaians please who amongst the two leading candidates is investing heavily in human capital and building stronger economic value of the citizenry and thus deserves your vote come 7th December?

6. Mr. John Mahama through poor supervision and mismanagement of the economy and educational sector existed the Presidency with huge debts such as GHS 9M on Capitation Grants, GHS 4M on Feeding Grants for Special Schools, GHS 4M on supply of school uniforms, GHS 14M on exercise books to basic schools, he left boarding students debt, broken and empty libraries, H.E Nana Addo upon assumption of power has paid all these debts left behind by Mr. Mahama and went further to increase capitation grant to GHS 10 per child, expanded school feeding, made boarding free, free uniforms, free utility bills, no examination fee, free textbooks and free admission fee to mention but a few.
Now Mr. Mahama who was in power under his watch that all these occurred is now claiming that he has learned his mistakes and can do better after Nana Addo has fixed all his mess and on the path of accelerated growth, please whom among these two will you vote for?
 
The upcoming 7th December elections is about making a choice between competence and incompetence. It is a decision on who has delivered, who has performed better against all odds. Who has consistently shown and demonstrated competence by delivering on his promises? Who is the perpetrator of fake news and who taunts real news, who talks delight in fueling violence and hate statements without recourse to the state and therefore the citizenry and who preaches and promotes peace, love and unity, development can only take place when there is peace and any leader whose political fortunes dwells on confusion, violence, and backwardness must be rejected.

Who among the two is promoting, deepening, and projecting Ghana's democracy through his competence, respect to institutions, rule of law, consistency, public pronouncements, and conduct, and who is on the other hand incompetent, corrupt, inconsistent, indecisive, and drawing Ghana's democracy into mediocrity with the highest level of hypocrisy and persistently precipitating wicked propaganda across all levels of his engagement, zero respect for value for money, run down the economy miserably, who among the two performs better when in power and who performs poorly when in power but talks better when in opposition “building castles in the air”?
 
Who among the two is an existential threat to Ghana's democracy and development through incompetence? Who among the two has exhibited through competence as the one we can entrust our country and destiny to?
 
Ghanaians please I humbly present to you Mr. John Mahama and H.E. Nana Akufo Addo.
Make your decision now, think through and secure you and your generation now.
Your vote on 7th December counts. It is a personal decision to our development or destruction, progression, or retrogression.

The decision is yours to make.

Please let us all competently make the right decision on who is Competent enough to run the affairs of our dear country after 2020.