The leader and flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress, Mr. John Dramani Mahama has said the NPP has failed to account for the billions that have flowed into national coffers to support fight against the Pandemic COVID-19 even as it is cutting back on mass testing and contact tracing.
He said the NPP sought to claim credit for the work of private individuals around the lockdown feeding programme.
Speaking at 2020 manifesto launch by the Party, Mr. John Mahama said, these failings are squarely attributable to the wrong priorities of NPP leadership.
He said there are deeper structural problems that the Country needs to address.
“We all know that the most effective response to COVID-19, back in February and March was a lockdown. Our inability as a country to implement an effective lockdown in Accra, Kumasi and Kasoa for just 3 weeks demonstrated the collapse of our national political organisation.
The State was unable to organise food supplies to the vulnerable in our communities – even as foodstuffs lay rotting on farms just a few hours away and farmers and transporters lost their livelihoods.
Ghana’s attempts to feed the urban poor led to stampedes by starving people that surely accelerated the spread of the virus in inner-city areas.
The State also failed to protect the physically weak from deprivation by the physically strong. Our State could not organise the distribution of essential hygiene products to peoples’ homes.
Our State was unable to police lockdowns (or even mask-wearing) without violent abuse of citizens’ constitutional rights.
It is probable that, in subsequent waves of viral spread, we will have to lock down cities, Districts, Regions or the entire country. It is possible that at some point, we will have to ration essential supplies.
Without addressing these problems, we will fail in the future just as we failed last March. It is clear that the NPP lacks the vision or the competence to design solutions to them.”
Mr. Mahama said the NDC must and will confront these problems head-on, adding, the next NDC Government will approach COVID-19 holistically as the principal framework for development planning through social reorganization project.
The flag bearer said from his first day in office, they will:
a. Review every single MDA and Government programme and project, and every budget line in terms of how it affects our campaign to suppress infections and build resilience.
b. Actively shift resources from luxury spending to enable us to address COVID-19 in a scientific, planned, and sustainable way.
c. Prioritize expenditure on social safety nets and on supplies (e.g. PPE) for front-line workers (particularly front-line health workers, schools, teachers, etc.) and in the systems that ensure that these actually reach the intended targets.
d. Call a national conference on pandemic resilient living within the first Quarter of 2021 to galvanise the country to meet ongoing and upcoming challenges in unity.
e. Improve coordination between MDAs and MMDAs based on the accelerated devolution of responsibilities to MMDAs. Within the MMDAs we will empower Assemblymen/women and Unit Committees that work directly with communities.
f. Within the framework of our 2016 Land Use and Spatial Planning Act, implement a massive programme of spatial planning and urban renewal to achieve well-planned cities, towns and villages better able to meet pandemic challenges.
g. Support community self-organisation as provided for in Article 35(2)(a) of the Constitution to ensure that communities can direct Assembly organisations constructively to provide the specific solutions needed in communities.
h. Use COVID-19 resources (whether provided by Development Partners or from savings from our expenditure reviews) to ensure that defined processes are rapidly improved in an accountable and democratic way including:
• Intensive education on the science and management of virus suppression including hand washing, sanitizer use, avoiding face touching etc.
• Management and coordination of wholesale and retail trading to avoid crowding and minimise the level of physical interaction amongst citizens
• Plan and manage relief supplies to vulnerable citizens at their residences to avoid the ugly scenes we saw during the lockdown and suppress transmissions; and
• Arrange community-level policing of COVID-19 regimes.
Source: Mybrytfmonline/Kofi Atakora
