Former General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Lawyer Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie has stated that President John Dramani Mahama and his relatives did nothing extraordinary by donating GHc300, 000 to the Cardiothoracic Centre of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra. The amount was donated as part of efforts to support the Cardiothoracic Centre, and as well to fulfill his promise made during the death of his mother to donate the entire monies received as donations made to him and his family during the funeral of his late mother who passed away in June this year, 2016. He noted President Mahama gave this money out for the purposes of winning more voters to his side and not by his own free will, but my little advice to him is to start parking his luggage to leave his position because it would no longer belong to him in some few months to come. “Ghanaians are tired of his propaganda gimmicks,” he said. Commenting on Supreme Court Justice, Justice Jones Dotse’s appeal for political parties to accept the decisions of the courts in the up-coming parliamentary and presidential election, he furiously stated that the NPP would in this year’s election not tolerate any unsuitable behavior from the camp of the National Democratic Congress [NDC] and the Electoral Commission [EC], as it happened in 2012. He claims his party with its own figures collated from all the polling stations would declare their own results if the EC decides to delay the process. However, the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Joseph Ade Coker as his co-panelist on the programme indicated that such harsh words by members of the NPP have prevented them from winning the presidential seat, yet they keep speaking in that manner with the believe of winning the December polls. “The fact of the matter is that they would lose the elections, for not believing in the dealings of the EC,’ Ade Coker said. Hitting back at Sir John’s initial comment against President Mahama and his family, he [Ade Coker] stressed “Mahama and his family had their own businesses, which gave them profits before their brother (John Mahama) became President of Ghana; it is not his presidency that has made them who they are today”.

one village one dam

The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru-Limuna has stated that agricultural policies outlined by the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo are only politically feasible.

He argues that the policy  ‘one village, one dam’ is a recipe for the destruction of arable lands observing  it is also  technically impossible but could be passed within the political circles primarily because the party is noted for making  such unrealistic promises.

“Technically, ‘one dam one village’ is not possible but politically it could be considered because anyone can say anything in the name of politics and get away with it”, he said.unity-walk-banner2

According to him, he does not in anyway believe in the ideologies of Nana Addo stating that the topography of the villages varies from one location to the other.

Alhaji Limuna observed that the more you dam in the villages, the more you destroy the land and water bodies which will eventually affect main water sources that feed directly  into the Akosombo dam further worsening the woes of the country.

“The more you dam, the more you destroy the main ones. If you have to be damming in the over 6,000 villages then trouble awaits you because it could affect your source of energy supply as well”, he added.

He explained that the NPP flagbearer was trying to underscore the importance of irrigated farms in view of climate change and why Ghanaians should no longer depend on rain-fed agriculture.

The Minister revealed that Via, Tono and Poyantanga dams are under serious rehabilitation to feed 221,000 hectors of irrigable lands available for farming and increase it by 500,000 by 2030.

“We want to rehabilitate the old systems to increase the number of irrigated farms in the country but not through his policy which is not feasible”, he emphasized.