NDC Is Shortsighted – Adwoa Safo

The New Patriotic Party's Member of Parliament for Dome-Kwabenya constituency, Sarah Adwoa Safo says the stalwarts of the National Democratic Congress are shortsighted to have not tapped the vision of Ex-President John Agyekum Kufour in the establishment of an ultra-modern edifice to facilitate the activities of the President.

Contributing on Citi FM’s News analysis program, the “Big Issue” on Saturday, Lawyer Adwoa Safo believed the Kufour government has been vindicated following the President’s movement to the Flagstaff House.

According to her, President Kufour set up the edifice to serve as an “emolument for the nation where the President can undertake his executive functions freely and will be provided with hi-tech facilities,” adding that the structure was built to project “cultural and historical relevance” of Ghana.

She however wondered why the NDC and its leadership after abandoning the Kufour-created seat of government will now decide to settle in the “hen’s coop” they so described the edifice prior to 2009.

“Has the Flagstaff House or the Jubilee House moved from Nima or has it evaporated?” she queried.

She explained that the behaviour of the NDC loyalists “is why Ghana is where it is now. We make unnecessary criticisms, destructive ones; which in the long run, we run ourselves around in the long term. President Kufour had a vision. Over 50 years down the line, we were still in the Castle using that as the official place for the Presidency. You go to other African countries, they have moved on and he thought that the time was ripe at the time; not per his own personal interest because he never even had the chance to move in there.”

She further revealed that the “renovation they(NDC) had to do before the President put himself up in, you will be amazed by the budget and the monies that have gone into that, does it serve the interest of Ghanaians? If it was good to move in now, then it was good to move in back in the days four years ago. Why wait for all the flowers to go dead? For all things to start getting rotten…?”

She urged the ruling party and President John Mahama to render an apology to the entire nation for reversing their decision.

“In every decision and every policy that the NPP through President Kufour in the 8-year term. The NHIS, they had issues; everything they’ve had issues because they are shortsighted. I think that we had a vision. President Kufour thought it would serve a purpose in the near future and that purpose it has now come to the realization of the President. We salute him but he owns Ghanaians an apology,” she said.

The NDC under the leadership of the late President John Evans Atta Mills rejected the notion that the Presidency should be relocated to the Flagstaff House, initially Golden Jubilee House, and therefore pledged not to settle in such a magnificent Presidential Palace.

The party cited among other concerns, security reasons and the “profligate” expenditure to support their claims that it would be unsafe for the President to move into the Flagstaff House.

The multi-million edifice, which has offices and residential premises for the President, has stirred passions in the political arena of the country.

In 2007, the NPP demolished the old Flagstaff House and rebuilt it with a grant from the Indian government to serve as the new seat of government. President Kufour, in 2008, commissioned the project to house his successor. But President Atta Mills refused to use the facility upon the inception of the third NDC government in 2009. However, part of the edifice served as a makeshift for the Foreign Affairs Ministry after its offices were completely gutted by fire. Despite the NDC’s position on the establishment of the Flagstaff House, President Mahama last Thursday relocated to the House as the official seat of government. At a short ceremony to mark the relocation of the seat of government to the Presidential Palace, President Mahama believed his movement will be the closure of a chapter of Ghana’s history and the dawn of a new era. But according to Lawyer Adwoa Safo, the NDC U-turn is “a clear reflection of hypocrisy at its highest degree.”

Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana