Presidential candidate of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Mahama, has fired back at President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, saying he’s been “sleeping” on his stance on galamsey and Free Senior High School (SHS) policy.
Mahama emphasized that he has repeatedly commented on galamsey, citing his hour-long presentation at the University of Energy and Natural Resources, where he outlined the NDC’s policy on small-scale mining.
“I’ve commented on galamsey over and over again… It looks like he doesn’t live in this country,” he said during a campaign tour in Ningo-Prampram.
He challenged Akufo-Addo to retrieve the tape of his presentation to get informed.
“Recently, when I met the clergymen, the Christian community, a part of my speech and the questions and answers was again on galamsey and small-scale mining. And so, I mean, there’s a lot that I’ve said.
It is his responsibility. The people of Ghana elected him. He is currently the president of Ghana. And it is his responsibility to deal with Galamsey now,” Mahama added.
The former president also addressed Free Senior High School (SHS) implementation problems, citing lack of dedicated funding, parents’ dissatisfaction with the double-track system, and poor food quality.
“Again, he’s not in this country, or he has been sleeping, because I have made it clear that there are implementation problems with the free SHS. One, there’s no dedicated funding. Two, parents are not happy with their double track.”
“Three, the quality of food the children are given is not good. And so I’ve said that NDC is going to come and fix these three things. One, we’re going to corral part of our oil revenues into a dedicated fund, and that fund will be used to finance the free SHS.
“That’s number one. Number two, we’re going to fast track the completion of educational infrastructure so that we can ease the congestion in the schools, employ more teachers, and allow all our children to go to school at the same time, instead of going on a traffic light. And number three, I said I’ll change your centralized feeding system.
“I’m going to decentralize the feeding of our children in secondary school. The money is going to go directly to their schools, and their schools will be responsible for procuring the food to feed the children in order that the food will be better quality. If you are listening to me, that is our position on free SHS.”
Mahama stressed that it’s Akufo-Addo’s responsibility to address galamsey and Free SHS challenges as the current president.
He assured Ghanaians that he would take responsibility and sort out illegal mining after January 7, 2025.
By: Shadrack Odame Agyare | Myoriginalonline.net | Ghana
