During his most recent electioneering campaign tour of the Volta Region, I noted the imperative need for the presidential candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to have compared development projects undertaken by the Kufuor-led NPP government to those executed by the leaders of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and drawn the balance sheet for the people to have a palpable sense of the political track-record of the two major parties, if Nana Akufo-Addo wanted his campaign promises to be taken with the level of seriousness that it deserves. I hope his one district one factory policy proposition was not in response to my suggestion.

The obvious problem with the one district one factory policy is the fact that not the inhabitants of every district or constituency in the country may envisage the establishment of a factory as a priority or a pressing need. For some, it may be the reliable supply of electricity to enable them better the quality of their lives, by enabling them to establish their own businesses and revive those that might have collapsed in the wake of the perennially erratic power supply system in the country. This is where I could not agree more with Mr. Franklin Cudjoe, of the IMANI policy think-tank, that he had rather expected Nana Akufo-Addo to have outlined a comprehensive energy plan to effectively end the Dumsor crisis that has witnessed the literal collapse of hundreds of thousands of industries and small businesses throughout the country (See “Akufo-Addo’s Factory Policy Only a Wish – IMANI Boss” MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 6/21/16).

Better yet, what Nana Akufo-Addo and his campaign managers ought to do, right now, is to organize district-level Town-Hall Meetings to solicit the opinions of the citizens and residents of these communities vis-à-vis their priority needs. They would be surprised with the results of such undertaking. But even more significantly, they would get a far more realistic sense of what are needed to speed up the development of the country. The sort of top-down campaign promises being propagated by nearly every one of the presidential candidates of the various political parties offers a grim insight into how deeply these leaders are out of touch with the needs and aspirations of the people they are so intent on governing.

I, however, beg to differ with Mr. Cudjoe that Nana Akufo-Addo ought to measure his campaign promises against the massive failure that is President John Dramani Mahama’s promise to build some 200 Senior High Schools within his first term in office. According to the IMANI policy and education think-tanks’ executive director, as of July 2015, the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress had only been able to construct one school, which means that practically speaking the NDC had reneged on at least 99.5-percent of its high school physical-plant construction promises.

I beg to differ with Mr. Cudjoe because inasmuch as the records indicate that the bulk of electioneering campaign promises never get fulfilled, nevertheless, the New Patriotic Party has a far better development track-record than the National Democratic Congress. Conversely, it is the leaders of the Mahama Posse who have a lot to learn from their political opponents. At any rate, what politicians of both major parties ought to bear in mind is that the average eligible Ghanaian voter is savvy enough to distinguish between realistic and unrealistic campaign promises.

****************************

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Garden City, New York

June 25, 2016

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net