Barely 24 hours that flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. John Mahama asked Government to create jobs and stop throwing freebies at the citizenry, President Akufo-Addo has said he is providing critical help to households and families and not freebies.
According to him, “We are not providing freebies; we are providing critical help to households, families, and businesses, amid this pandemic, because we care. It is my conviction that, in times of crises, a responsible and sensitive Government must protect the population, and provide relief.”
Nana Akufo-Addo made this known as he addressed the nation from the Jubilee House on August 16, 2020.
The president said” I know that the pandemic has adversely affected many lives and livelihoods. It is for this reason that Government has implemented several measures such as free water and electricity, and funding to support small businesses, and tax reliefs, amongst others, to cushion the effect of the pandemic.”
Recently, Mr. John Mahama, asked President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to create jobs for Ghanaians to have the purchasing power to afford goods and services rather than keep throwing freebies at the citizenry, noting that countries do not develop that way.
During an interaction with members of the Association of Road Contractors, Mr. Mahama said: “This government is prioritizing consumption”, adding: “No government develops prioritizing consumption”.
“You have to invest money in the productive sectors and the productive sectors would create jobs and the jobs will create prosperity for the people”, he said.
“But if you say everybody should stay at home and we will give you everything free, free; free this, free that.
“All the countries that have developed, they didn’t develop like that”, he pointed out.
The former President said: “You must assure the people of jobs; if people are working and getting money, what would they need free for if they can afford to pay. And somebody says, ‘let’s have a competition on social intervention’; social interventions are consumption. “They should say, ‘let’s have competition in who invested more in the real sectors than the other’. We were doing 4.7 percent of GDP investment in the real sector; today they can hardly achieve 3 percent.”
Source: Mybrytfmonline/Kofi Atakora
