A deputy Information Minister says the opposition New Patriotic Party cannot be trusted on their promise of housing the poor and vulnerable when voted into power. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa insists the only track record of the NPP during their eight year tenure under President John Kufuor was to house themselves and their cronies instead of the vulnerable. He said apart from the fact that the party failed to complete any of the affordable housing they started in eight years, they contrived to allocate the uncompleted houses to ministers of state and their cronies- houses that were supposed to have gone to middle and junior level public servants. Mr. Okudzeto Ablakwa was responding to the promise by the NPP flagbearer Nana Akufo-Addo to build hostels for head porters popularly called Kayayei if he is voted into power. President John Mahama in reacting to the specific promise, described it as insulting to the people. But the NPP did not take it kindly, accusing the president of exposing his “unforgivable ignorance” on the matter. On Joy News, Friday, after a press conference earlier in the day, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa maintained the NPP “lacks the credibility to be making promises about housing.” “We have made the point that in their 2000 manifesto they promised that all slums in Ghana will be transformed to modern apartment houses. Eight years on that did not happen. “We have also observed that the NPP and their flagbearer as well as Boakye Agyarko yesterday in their press conference continue to say that Ghanaians are not occupying the affordable houses because we have failed to complete them. What they do not tell Ghanaians is that they had allocated largely those affordable houses. We have produced the list of NPP top government officials who were allocated those houses including Ministers of State. “We have also made the point that instead of concentrating on the vulnerable, eight years when they were in power, they didn’t see the kayayei, and they didn’t the hawkers. They were busy housing themselves,” he stated. When he was asked if the NDC had built any affordable housing in the country, the deputy minister answered in the affirmative, saying the government had started building affordable houses all over the country.