President’s address good, pleasing - CPP, PNC

Two Nkrumaist political parties have described President Mahama’s State of the Nation Address as a fair representation of the state of the nation but differed in their reactions to the decision by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to boycott the address.

They were particularly enthused that the President acknowledged the challenges facing the country and enumerated to the strategies he and his government had initiated to address those problems, especially the water, electricity, among other challenges.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic after President Mahama had delivered the State of the Nation Address, Mr Ivor Greenstreet, the General Secretary of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), said the President’s address was “very good”, touched most sensitive areas of the country and offered a glimmer of hope to the people.

He shared the President’s claim that the country’s election managers must be commended and continuously resourced to allow them to constantly conduct free and fair elections.

He appealed to Ghanaians to give meaning to the President’s call for unity to ensure that together as a nation all hands were put on deck for the development of the country.

Mr Greenstreet welcomed the President’s commitment to the provision of affordable housing to ease the burden on the ordinary Ghanaian who had to toil and pool resources to pay landlords who had taken undue advantage of the housing situation to charge exorbitant rent advances.

Regarding the NPP’s boycott of the address, he said as the CPP had always articulated, it was within the NPP’s right to embark on that move.

Mr Bernard Mornah, the General Secretary of the People’s National Convention (PNC), commended the President for touching on almost all the sensitive areas of  Ghanaian life, especially education, health, agriculture, the media and the economy, but was not pleased that concrete measures were not put out on how to grow the industrial sector which would employ the teeming youth.

He noted that the President’s pledge to make education affordable to allow even “the guinea fowl farmer’s daughter to have access to tertiary education” was welcome news and urged the President to follow up on that.

He noted that the President’s point on reforms in the mining sector was pleasing because it would prevent the situation where mining companies made huge profits in the midst of excruciating poverty among the indigenous people who had to bear the brunt of environmental pollution associated with mining activities.

Mr Mornah indicated that the point about the operationalisation of the Media Development Fund, the move to expedite action on the Freedom of Information Bill and the Broadcasting Bill were all good initiatives.

Story by Donald Ato Dapatem