NDC only copy and mess up NPP’s good ideas – Agyarko

The policy adviser of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer, Nana Akufo Addo, has accused the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) of modifying his party’s ideas, only to fail in its implementation.

Boakye Agyarko made this claim following the announcement by the government on Thursday, that an abated allowance would be paid to trainee nurses.

Senior members of the NPP have often stated that, they would  restore allowances to teacher and nursing trainees when the party wins power.

The running-mate of Nana Addo, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in March said said: “There is one assurance I want to leave you…we will restore teacher and nursing training allowances. For us, this is non-negotiable. It is a priority as a government of Nana Addo-Dunkwa Akufo-Addo and in the very first budget in the year 2017, we will restore teacher and nursing training allowances.”

His comments were criticized by pro-government groups who stated that it would not be sustainable.

According to Boakye Agyarko, the NDC usually criticizes the ideas of the NPP, only to eventually adopt them in a slightly altered form.

He stated this was a common practice by the governing party, as they had already failed in the implementation of the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy, and the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) project, which he claims were originally NPP ideas and which the NDC had criticized.

“I am not surprised that the Mahama government has taken this step. Anytime the NPP introduces a very good idea, their first reaction is to be incredulous and treat that idea with disdain and subsequently adopt it, and mess up its implementation. You can cite the famous examples of Free Senior High School and SADA. They treated those ideas with utmost incredulity and ended up adopting it and messing it up. It's something that's pathological to them,”Boakye Agyarko said on Eyewitness News.

He also claimed that, the restoration of the allowances was only a move to pander  to the public in order to secure votes for the elections.

According to him, the decision to restore the allowances was unsurprising with about four months to go to the polls.

He believes that by this move, the government is clearly growing increasingly desperate to win over voters.

“When you have Asiedu Nketiah rubbishing the payment of student allowance, a president who has signed an IMF agreement to tighten the belts on the national purse and keeps on reminding the nation that under no circumstance will he allow budget overruns then suddenly for political gains, the president does a U-turn through a very obscure statement, it's a pure political gimmick and I don't believe that anything will come out of it“

Boakye Agyarko
‘Scraped’ allowances to be restored

A technical committee set up by the President to review allowances for nursing trainees, on Thursday, recommended payment of an abated allowance with a possibility to migrate them unto the Students Loan Scheme.

The allowances had initially been scrapped in order to improve admission  into the various training institutions by removing the restrictions on admissions due to the huge amount paid on allowances.

The trainee widely opposed the move leading to the setting up of a committee to assess the situation and advise on the way forward.

The Committeee recommended that the 34,500 students in the health professional training across the country will receive a payment of GHc 150 a month.

The statement said “the payment amount would serve as a bridging mechanism pending the amendment of the Students Loan Trust Act, to enable students in non-tertiary health training institutions access loans to support education.”

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By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana