NPP Shows Leadership in Opposition on Free SHS- NPP-USA

A party that can lead does so even in opposition. Conversely, a party that cannot lead fails to lead even in government. This simple reality of Ghanaian politics was evident in the recently delivered State of the Nation Address (SONA) by NDC President, John Dramani Mahama. Two years ago, this NDC president adamantly discounted NPP’s Free Senior High School campaign promise as unfeasible. Now forced to swallow the bitter pill of recognizing that the NPP was right and he was wrong, President Mahama has made an about turn and has given that same promise that indeed Free SHS is not only possible, he will attempt to implement it in 2015 – a year or so before he leaves office.
Sporting a shameless straight face, President Mahama announced in his SONA delivered to Parliament on Tuesday February 25, 2014, that “the Ministry of Education, following consultations with stakeholders has prepared a report on the roadmap for a progressive introduction of free secondary education in Ghana as required under the 1992 constitution,” the President said.
“This roadmap will be presented to Cabinet for approval and subsequent implementation. Under the guidance of this roadmap, we can anticipate that fees for day students will be abolished at an estimated cost of GHC71 million in 2015/2016 academic year,” he added. Even that, it is
noteworthy that Mahama’s version of Free SHS is a scaled down version of Nana Akufo-Addo’s full version estimated to cost GHC750million a year.
NPP-USA urges President Mahama to do something well for once. Even when Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP have cooked the food, Mahama and his NDC government appears to be having difficulty eating it. The blueprint for the implementation of NPP’s version of Free SHS, which is what the Ghanaian youth needs, has been completed and was ready to be rolled out until the presidency was stolen with the help of EC Chairman Dr. Afari Gyan and Atuguba’s Supreme Court.
If President Mahama has now seen the light and wants to do the right thing, all he has to do is contact the NPP for the blueprint to implement the full version of Free SHS. It would not be the first time that a fundamentally significant program positively impacting Ghanaians emanated from the visionary NPP even if President Mahama has to be the one implementing it.
NPP-USA – Public Relations Committee.