The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Atwima/Mponua is accusing the governing National Democratic (NDC) of abandoning its social democratic ideology which it loudly touted while in opposition. Mr Isaac Asiamah believes the NDC government’s actions differ markedly from what it told the people it was when the party was seeking power. He was speaking on MultiTV’s political talk show Minority Caucus Monday evening. The topic was the NDC government’s profligate spending, and he was speaking specifically to the planned purchasing of the five jets by the government. Mr Asiamah said while the objective of buying the aircraft for the military was a noble one, some accessories that were included in some of the aircraft and the cost of those additions were simply outrageous and left one wondering whether the governing party was still a social democratic party. He said it was difficult to, for instance, accept the rather tenuous argument by the government that all the five aircraft were for the military when the $105,370,177.09 Embraer E190 which entertainment component alone is costing the nation a whopping $1.4 million. “The hypocrisy is too much; how can you be spending an amount of 14 billion old cedis on entertainment?” he asked. Mr Asiamah said while the government was procuring an executive jet, it lacked the moral courage to be honest and truthful with the people and say so. Instead, the government, he believed, was deceiving the citizenry into believing that all the five aircraft were specifically for use by the military. The Atwima/Mponua MP however said he was not surprised by the moral quandary in which the NDC found itself. He said given the vicious propaganda and unbridled opportunistic politicisation of similar attempts by former president Kufuor to acquire two aircraft for the state by the NDC, then in opposition, it should be difficult for the governing party to be honest with the people. He said the specs in the Embraer E190 show clearly that the jet is a luxurious executive jet – a jet he is surprised is being procured by social democrats. “When you talk about executive jet, it is not about the name executive jet. It is what is in it; what it contains. So when you are going to have all these options embodied in the plane, then obviously, it’s for the president. Nobody can deceive anybody.” He contended the Embraer E190 was far more luxurious than the Falcon 900 procured by Mr Kufuor which the NDC flaunted on the faces of Ghanaians as an example of what they called the profligacy of the NPP. “Let me tell you, go to the falcon 900 that they spoke about, the options there do not meet this one at all.” He repeated the NPP’s concern over what they say are suspicious figures being presented by the government as the cost of the aircraft. “The figures projected by the NDC for the purchase of the jets are highly exorbitant,” he added. He smelt corruption in the whole transaction maintaining he could not be convinced that a party that shouted on the rooftops about profligacy during the NPP regime would contract a hangar for an aircraft at the cost of $17 million. “Some of the figures that have turned out and the fact that we are going to spend a whooping sum of $17 million to construct a hanger is something that we should all be concerned about,” he asserted. He quoted then Minority Leader Alban Sumana Bagbin as saying it was insensitive of the Kufuor administration to be buying two aircraft at a time Ghanaians were poor, hungry, had no water, and no electricity. “Ghana, where we are thirsty, where we are hungry, where we are HIPC, where we are poor, it is important that as a house, we are seen to be defending the interest of the people,” Mr Asiamah quoted Mr Bagbin as saying on the floor of the House in 2008 when a motion was being debated for the purchase of the two jets, and asked, “what has changed?” “Between 2008 and 2011 what has changed? We are worse off than in 2008 in terms of light offs, energy…we have poor road network, school fees have skyrocketed, go to campuses, the hotels, the students cannot afford, they are complaining. Senior High School fees have gone up [by] almost 200 times, basic food prices on the market have gone up by 200 times since they came. So what has changed? Are Ghanaians really better off? Are they all happy? Has poverty gone all of a sudden, are they no longer poor? These are the questions we are asking. They should answer. If in 2008 they claimed that Ghana was poor, Ghanaians were suffering, they were thirsty, there was no electricity, no water, today, do we have all these things in abundance? Are Ghanaians satisfied with all these things? Certainly the answer is a big no,” he asserted. He said while the condition of the average Ghanaian had worsened, the government was procuring five jets at very suspicious costs. “When you go through the figures, the horrible figures that have been churned out [you will understand why] some of us are quite disturbed. When you go through the figures and look at it, extra fuel tank costing us 8 million dollars – and as I said the other time, one would expect social democrats to be more gracious to the tax payer and not to waste scarce resources. Their hypocrisy is too much.” Another panelist, Mr Newton Ofei said it was difficult to understand exactly why the NDC made the argument they made in 2008. He said the NDC politicized the purchase of the Falcon 900 – which was scheduled to come into the country at a time the then president who ordered it would have left office – as if the former president was going to carry the aircraft home. Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana