Pollster Ben Ephson says the former Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen should have resigned earlier if he felt some government decisions were wrong. 

According to him, immediately he (Mr Kyerematen) realised he had policy differences with President Akufo-Addo, he should have resigned. 

The former Minister in an address to the nation on Tuesday, January 10, to announce his intention to contest the flagbearership of the NPP, said even though Akufo-Addo's government has performed well, other things could have been addressed better. 

“The President has laid a strong foundation for the socio-economic development of our country, although I believe there are things that could have been done differently. 

My vision is to build a superstructure on this foundation that will bring prosperity to our nation,” he said. 

However, Mr Ben Ephson says such commentary is unnecessary at the moment. 

He is of the view that Mr Kyerematen just like any other presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) will campaign on the achievements of the current government and thus must be measured in his utterances. 

“If you are a minister and the President is exiting and you want to campaign and in your speech you say that certain things that were done could have been done better, maybe in the coming days he’ll want to go further. But I thought that it was a bit unnecessary, maybe he has his own campaign strategy and so that is the only part that I was a bit surprised about.”

“You are not going to run a campaign on you, Alan Kyerematen. You are going to campaign on the record of the NPP government for the past six to seven years. I’m sure people are going to ask him to give examples of what has not been done right. 

If he disagreed vehemently with what had not been done right what prevented him from resigning? If you thought it was so bad that in your first address announcing your desire to contest you are taking the President on, you have not been sentenced by any court to be a minister, he could have just said because of a few things, Mr President I can’t take up your job,” he said in an interview with Accra based Starr FM on Wednesday. 

Meanwhile, the former Trade Minister has officially announced his intention to contest for the NPP’s presidential primaries.