Bawumia Joking in the Church is an Indication that NPP Promises Are Jokes

The church is a place for serious business with God. People who spread the word of God say the church is the baptised followers of Jesus Christ, called together by Him, led by elders, to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and to hear God’s Word. It cannot be a place for anybody wanting to occupy the high office of the land to go joke. The church cannot be any place for jokes by any person irrespective of status.

It was therefore condemnable for the flagbearer of the ruling NPP to promise to pay churches and latter change his mind and called it a "Joke" because he was heavily whipped by discerning minds for such lazy promise. Joking in the church?

The NPP are known for deceit and deception during campaigns and they have started it once more going into the 2024 general elections. I will only demonstrate two instances. First, you remember in cape Coast, where the NPP launched their 2020 manifesto, they promised the people of Cape Coast an airport and a habour. The current flagbearer, Dr. Bawumia was the one who read the promise from the manifesto as follows, “For the people of Cape Coast, I have good news for you, we are building a new habour in Cape Coast and a new aiport in Cape Coast. It is very critical that we do that.”

Clearly, the idea of an airport and a habour was not in their Manifesto but the night to the launch, the people of cape Coast protested strongly through radio that they are deserving of an airport and a harbour. NPP quickly amended their Manisfesto to include an aiport and a habour for Cape Coast.

After the 2020 elections, the president made a u-turn and claimed that he was not aware of such promise to the people of Ghana and most especially Cape Coast. He said, “The commitment was never to build a harbour. It was to a landing site. It is very, very important. And you look into page 88 of the NPP manifesto for the 2020 election. It’s very clear”. He furthered that “As far as the harbour is concerned, we have to be clear in our mind, we never committed ourselves… I never said I was going to build a harbour in Cape Coast. I said I was going to build a landing site, and that would start next year.” As we speak, there is no landing site project ongoing in Cape Coast after amending his stance.

The President was not speared for denying a promise clearly so made to Ghanaians. The fire forced him to apologise claiming he examined the 2020 manifesto and saw that the promise he denied was actually made. In all this, the NPP flagbearer who read the promise in Cape Coast never said anything or made any attempt to correct his boss. Perhaps, he smuggled the promise into the manifesto at the blind side of his boss just for votes.

The second issue I will raise is the free water and electricity. Going into the 2020 elections, government announced free water and electricity for consumers. Some sections of Ghanaians criticized that it was just for votes but government claimed it was to alleviate the suffering Covid-19 had had on Ghanaians. After the 2020 elections, this was withdrawn and electricity and water tariffs were increased significantly. The government also introduced COVID-19 Health Levy, the Sanitation and Pollution Levy, the Financial Sector Clean Up Levy, and the Energy Sector Recovery Levy in 2021. It proceeded to introduce an Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy) in 2022.

It will shock you to learn that the NPP flagbearer who claimed he does not believe in taxing mobile money was the one who held a lecture on digitalization to condition the minds of Ghanaians to accept the E-Levy the government was going to introduce. The E-levy was introduced in the 2022 budget exactly two weeks after this lecture.

Ghanaians resisted these taxes strongly particularly the Covid-19 and E-levy. The information Minister at the time Kojo Oppong Nkrumah explained that the free electricity and water we enjoyed in 2020 must be paid for through taxes. “It was free to the people of Ghana at the time…. When we say free electricity it doesn’t mean that the IPP (Independent Power Producer) is also going to say because the President has said free electricity I won’t charge for it,” He stated.

He proceeded that Ghana has spent about GH¢19 billion on Covid-19 related issues and that includes the relief package on the utilities. “But that 19 billion Cedis has to be paid for at some point, the liabilities we have incurred has to be paid for.”

Aside these two instances, the NPP made several other promises which they later denied or abandoned because they are "Jokes." They denied building 360 new senior high schools from scratch, create a bank account for every Ghanaian, restoring the value of the Cedi and improving macro-economic stability, transforming Ghana in their first 100 days in office, and many more. They, most importantly, reduced the office of the Vice President to a mere “Driver’s Mate” just to blackmail Akkufo Addo for their parochial political gain.

The promises of the NPP cannot be taken serious. They are “Jokes,” as famously said by their flagbearer, just like their promises in both 2016 and 2020. The promise to cancel E-Levy and betting tax was a joke. The promise not to tax churches was a joke. The promise to align the import duty at Tema port (Ghana) with the import duty at the Lome Port (Togo) was a joke. The promise to stop LGBTQI+ activities was a joke. They despise taxes when seeking votes but so much love them when they get the vote.

Ghanaians must instead place premium on the promises John Mahama and NDC made in the 2020 People's Manifesto and proceed to accept an enhanced version of it going into the 2024 elections. John Mahama together with his running mate, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang will never joke in any place they stand to promise the people of Ghana let alone an important place like the Holy place of God, the Church. They have never done that and will never do it because they place high premium on the office the president and vice president.

By Hon. Taluta Gbanha Mahama
Sissala West District Assembly
[email protected]