The Central Regional Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Allotey Jacobs has slammed his party executives speaking against the free Senior High School.
He has therefore threatened to stage a fierce attack against his own party members who are speaking ill about the flagship policy by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
According to him, those NDC members criticizing the policy have benefitted from the SHS policy because their wards have been placed at some of the secondary schools across the country.
The position by the Minority, he noted, does not officially represent that of the party NDC as an opposition party.
Allotey Jacobs told Kwame Afrifa-Mensah on Happy FM’s ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ show that the comments made by party functionaries did not represent the position by the NDC.
‘’When you talk about the Minority, it is Members of Parliament in opposition. Then we have the opposition party. The party hasn’t made any statement on free SHS and is tactical.’’
The fire brand politician said as an individual, he will never speak ill about the policy and nobody can also force him to do same.
“Me as an individual; In a democratic dispensation, you have your democratic right to express whatever views you think about free SHS or any other government policy programmes. My position is that, me [Allotey Jacobs]; I will not speak against the SHS when it has come and being implemented. You speak against it. I will speak against my own party people whose children are having free SHS. What I will rightly do is to criticize the discrepancies and the shortfalls so as to strengthen government…This is what we have do.’’
He said in all the difficulties of government, they have included Mahama’s E-Block schools to compliment those who couldn’t get placement.
“The Minister of Education needs to compliment the previous government for that dream and that policy,” he added.
The policy he posited will go a long way to build the name of Nana Addo and make him more popularly should it go well and ‘’because we are in opposition, we have to criticize fairly and constructively.’’
The NDC preached progressively free SHS and the NPP preached free SHS at the end of the day, we are all looking forward to nation growth and that can only be done through consensus building.
“When Ghana becomes literate, I don’t think we can classify any region as illiterate,’’ he said.
Literacy, he further stated, can help Ghanaians identify politicians who lack credibility and only peddle falsehood to win votes.
In his conclusion, he advised the NDC to be careful as the policy may have a negative impact on their 2020 bid.
In his view, the beneficiaries who would be voting in 2020 may not hesitate to vote for the NPP should the policy go well.
‘’As a political party, we should go along with the free SHS… We insisted that it was impossible but today, it is here and there is nothing we can do because it has become a national issue and we should move it forward to become part of our political policies so we improve upon it as we move along.’’
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By Kweku Agyemang
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