<<Print>>

Contrary to claims by the opposition New Patriotic Party that the poverty situation has worsened under the Mills administration, conditions have significantly improved, a leading member of the NDC has said. Mr Felix Ofosu Kwakye said Ghanaians certainly cannot be suffering. He was speaking on Joy FM�s news analysis programme Newsfile in reaction to claims by the presidential candidate of the NPP, Nana Akufo-Addo that majority of Ghanaians have slid into poverty thanks the maladministration of the National Democratic Congress led by president John Mills. Nana Addo accused the NDC government of inflicting a poverty owning democracy on the people of Ghana in just two-and-a-half years of its rule. But Mr Kwakye, who is the Special Assistant to the Minister of Trade, said that cannot be true. He contended that �Ghanaians cannot be worse off if the factors that were contributing to the hardships have been mitigated.� Using the findings of a Gallup Poll based on which the NPP flagbearer drew his conclusions, Mr Felix Kwakye said Nana Addo couldn�t have been more dishonest. According to him, while the poll showed the number of Ghanaians who lived comfortably on their earnings dropped sharply from 20 per cent in 2007 to 11 per cent in 2008, the NPP flagbearer deliberately and mischievously created the impression the drop occurred under the NDC government. �The fact is that in 2007 if 20 per cent of those that you polled said they were living comfortably on their present income and then a year down the line � at the time that you were in power in 2008 � 11 per cent now say that they are living comfortably on their income, there�s been a nine percentage drop in the number of people who were living comfortably. What it clearly shows is that something definitely was wrong somewhere and that the policies that the NPP was rolling out were having a deleterious effect on the ability of Ghanaians to make ends meet,� he said. Comparing this drop to what happened under the first year of Mills government where the poll showed a one per cent drop in the people living comfortably on their income, Mr Kwakye said the results is clear. The one per cent drop he said was the result of prudent policies of the NDC government. �Between 2009 and 2010, the drop was six per cent. What it simply meant was that the decline had been halted,� he stated. When his attention was drawn to the fact that the poll also showed the number of people who said they found it very difficult to live on their income had increased from 18 per cent in 2008 to 34 per cent in 2010, he said, �I have already indicated to you that the issues that were affecting the standard of living of Ghanaian because of the bad policies of the NPP were still persisting. Government needed to arrest the decline first and then implement measures to reverse it because if you have a vehicle that is heading for a ditch, you don�t just put the gear on reverse and turn, you stop it first and then switch the gear into reverse mode and then turn.�