Members of the Ashanti Region-based pressure group, Movement for Change (MFC), have reacted angrily to the comment made by a presidential staffer and have therefore asked President John Dramani Mahama to stop his “attack dogs.”
Alhaji Halidu Haruna, a presidential staffer in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration, at the weekend took a swipe at some of the country’s celebrities for daring to criticise government, in the wake of the current energy crisis.
He described the female celebrities who had appealed to the Mahama administration to fix the crisis (known as dumsor) as “prostitutes,” while another NDC commentator, Dela Coffie, said the stars were in their “menopause” stage, for amplifying the concerns of Ghanaians, including business people.
The MFC said Halidu Haruna’s comment did not only leave a sour taste, but appeared irresponsible and reckless, intimating that the presidential staffer’s crude comment was an attack on womanhood.
In a statement jointly signed by its chairman, Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare; Communication Director, Henry Nana Boakye; Operations Director, Odeneho Kwaku Appiah; Secretary, Justin Koduah Frimpong and Research Director, Moro Kabore, the MFC called on the first lady, Lordina Mahama and the Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, to condemn the unsavoury remark by Haruna.
For the pressure group, the quintessence of the verbal attack was to debase women in general, especially those who have attained the age of 30 and above, and still remained single.
“This unwholesome comment is not only an attack on these celebrities, but on women in general. In this day and age when women are being encouraged to participate in nation building, this cowardly attack by a member of John Mahama’s government leaves much to be desired,” the statement noted.
It said the sin of these young female celebrities was that they added their voices to the cries of Ghanaians who are suffering from the effect of the power crisis, recounting that the load shedding exercise had been with the country for the past three years without any solution in sight.
The MFC catalogued a number of promises personally made by President Mahama to end the energy crisis, and recalled that the president in 2013 described the dumsor as an act of God as he attributed the cause to dwindling water levels of the Akosombo Dam.
“The President again in 2013 was emphatic that the load shedding was as a result of inadequate gas supply from Nigeria and that a completion of the Atuabo Gas Plant would bring an end to the exercise,” the group recalled.
In 2014, the statement said, Ghanaians were given another excuse that the load-shedding was occasioned by the low level of the Bui Dam, and later promised of power barges in 2015 – all of which the MFC said had proved to be vane propaganda.
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