NPP Far Ahead Of NDC

If you want to see the moribund economy revived after the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections, your best bet is to vote the New Patriotic Party (NPP) into power. According to a research conducted by DaMina Advisors, a frontier Market Specialists based in the United States, �an opposition New Patriotic Party win will see many immediate changes in current government policies.� The NPP, according to the findings of the research, would put mechanisms in place to stop the cedi from its current free fall, increase the daily quantum of oil production from its current 70,000 barrels a day, and roll back the unbudgeted increase in government expenditure and thus free resources for development. �Ghana�s currency, which has depreciated badly in recent months, and which has precipitated a domestic shortage of forex, will be re-stabilised by the new NPP government,� DaMina stressed. �Firstly, a new Central Bank Governor will be appointed, who will have the clear mandate of stabilising prices and the Cedi,� the report affirmed. The report said the country currently had no substantive head of the Central Bank, following the appointment of Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur as Vice-President, following the demise of President John Evans Atta Mills. The United-based DaMina Advisors has some of Africa�s most renowned technocrats and politicians sitting on its Advisory Council. They are Lord Paul Boateng, Ghanaian-born former Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the United Kingdom, Dr. Babacar Ndiaye, former President of the African Development Bank, and His Excellency Kabine Komara, former Prime Minister of Guinea. Others include Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, former Minister of Communications in Ghana, Hon. Kasongo Shomary, Deputy Minister of Mines of the Congo Democratic Republic, H.E. Chabala, former Zambia Ambassador to the EU and UN, and Mr. Chris Katsigazi, former Uganda Ambassador to the United States and Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uganda. Some other advisors on the board of DaMina are Dr. Ousmane Sylla, former Guinean Minister of Mines, H.E. Mamadouba Max Bangoura, former Guinean Minister of Planning and Private Investment Promotion, Mr. Bismark Rewane, former Advisor to the late Nigerian President, Umaru Yar�Adua, Ms. Rita Gail-Johnson, former Senior Executive at Big-4 Accounting firm, and David Ensor, Chief Credit Officer, AIG-Chartis. In Accra, Dr. Spio-Garbrah, who was recently outdoored as a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) told The Chronicle yesterday that though the report was authentic, he believed the research findings of DaMina, published on August 17, 2012, might have been overtaken by events. The report said a new NPP administration would be much tougher on Tullow PLC, and other oil companies in the new oil exploration business, than the current NDC administration, �which has generally been relatively lax in its oversight of the new energy sector. The country�s cocoa sector, which remains geographically at the center of NPP heartland, will also receive subventions and subsidies to increase production and export revenues.� The research said revamping the economy after the elections would offer a major challenge to the incoming administration as a result of profligate expenditure that normally went with organising general elections in the country. In spite of this challenge, the report was of the view that an incoming NPP administration would roll back recent unbudgeted increases in government expenditures, as the new administration seeks to curb a weakening cedi and reduce the budget deficit. Mahama-Amissah Arthur ticket considerably weaker The DaMina Report, published on August 17, barely one week after the burial of President John Evans Atta Mills, established that the Mahama-Amissah Arthur Ppresidential ticket of the ruling National Democratic Congress is electorally weaker than its main rivals in the December 7 poll. According to the official report of the Frontier Markets Specialists, the NDC presidential ticket would not be able to withstand the whirlwind, popularly of the New Patriotic ticket of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumiah. The research established that while the name of Nana Akufo-Addo was well engraved in the minds of most electorates in Ghana, most of the electorates were now getting to terms with the leadership of President John Dramani Mahama. The report said while Nana Akufo-Addo, a veteran of Ghana politics in opposition and in government for a very long time, taking to the road to get acquainted with the semi and illiterate population of Ghana for a very long time, the Mahama-Amissah Arthur ticket was just rolling off, making it difficult for most members of the electorate to get used to the new combination. The report argues that even the traditional incumbency advantage that normally props up traditional African leaders would not be of much help this time round, and that while Mr. Mahama has been around for over a decade, �his name recognition among the majority of illiterate and semi-illiterate population is surprisingly low.� �Recent random �name identification� surveys conducted in several disjointed rural communities in Ghana show that despite enjoying traditional media attention, Mahama is shockingly not well-known throughout the country.� One other issue that could count against the Mahama-Amissah Arthur ticket, according to the report, is disunity in the NDC, which appears to be receiving rapt attention by the President and leader of the party. Even then, the research findings are unimpressed. �Even if President Mahama, under a Solomonic anointing, manages to miraculously unify his fractured party and its warring elites, he will still face the huge obstacles of having less national name recognition,� the report states. DaMina holds no joy for the smaller parties and their candidates either. According to the report, all the other parties could hardly galvanise more than three percent votes in the December poll, likely to be won by the NPP at one touch.