The opposition NPP has said it is double standards for the governing NDC to tag some critical think-tanks as NPP appendages when only eight years ago, it hailed reports from these institutions.

Deputy NPP Communications Director Anthony Karbo who made the criticism said the NDC while in opposition referred to reports by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and IMANI Ghana, a policy think-tank to demonize the NPP which was then in power.

He was questioning the cause for the u-turn by the NDC which is now in government.

The governing party at a press conference Tuesday, the General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia said the NPP “had manufactured their own NGOs here who create reports” favourable to the narrative of the opposition party that the government was corrupt.

Asiedu Nketia said the NPP had adopted this strategy because internationally acclaimed think-tank, Transparency International has been scoring the NDC government ‘higher and higher’ marks in its fight against corruption.

NDC General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia

“We are not surprised that they will be engaging in this type of thing” Asiedu Nketia said.

The NPP, he said found Transparency International report inappropriate fodder to feed the public about the so-called corruption by government.

But Anthony Karbo finds this argument “a naked display of double standards and hypocrisy”.

He said in the bitter debate over free education policy of the NPP in the 2012 elections, the NDC conveniently used IMANI’s opposition against the idea as basis to criticise the NPP programme. IMANI doubted the feasibility of the grand education project.

The NDC also highlighted a study conducted by the CDD in 2004 that pointed to several instances of the abuse of incumbency during the 2004 electioneering year.

The NDC accusations are however not new. Relationship between the NDC and groups like the CDD, IEA, IMANI have been strained for years now.

NDC boycotted an IEA debate on the voter's register in October last year.

As far back as August 2005, the NDC announced that it was formally severing any relations with the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana).