A Former Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Koku Anyidoho, has said the decision of flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia to start his campaign ahead of the 2024 elections before announcing his running mate is apt.
Mr Anyidoho said, Dr Bawumia needed to establish his presence prior to naming his running mate.
“From a politically strategic perspective, it makes lots of sense for Dr. Bawumia to kick-start his campaign as Flagbearer & establish his presence before naming his running mate so that, ad infinitum, the running mate shall always be Number 2 with no “funny ideas”. Smart move,’ eh wrote on X.
From a politically strategic perspective, it makes lots of sense for Dr. Bawumia to kick-start his campaign as Flagbearer & establish his presence before naming his running mate so that, ad infinitum, the running mate shall always be Number 2 with no “funny ideas”. Smart move👍 pic.twitter.com/fyEyhUchM1
— Samuel Koku Anyidoho🇬🇭 (@KokuAnyidoho) April 30, 2024
Dr Bawumia started his campaign on Monday, April 29. He started by meeting the regional executives of the NPP and touted his agreements as Vice President and also his plans for Ghana if he is elected.
He promised among other things that his administration will ensure that the import duties in Ghana are not above those of Lome, Togo.
He observed that Lome port is a major competitor for Ghana. People usually import goods through the Lome port and smuggle them into Ghana.
To stop the smuggling, he said, Ghana will charge the same import duties as Lome or even lower.
“Tema port will be fully automated. We are bringing a new policy for import duty, we are going to align the import duty at Tema port with the import duty at the Lome Port. The ports in Ghana will not charge higher duties than the ports in Lome, this is our policy, we will not charge higher duties because they are our competitors.
“If you are higher all the containers will go to Lome and they will smuggle them into Ghana and you will lose the revenue so we are going to make sure that under a new policy, we will be either lower or the same as Lome. That is the policy and that will help our business people, no need for smuggling,” Dr Bawumia.
Touting his achievements, for the first time in the history of Ghana, consumers of electricity can sit in the comfort of their homes or wherever they find themselves and buy electric power without having to join any line at the offices of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
This, he said, is among the list of innovative measures introduced by the Akufo-Addo administration.
“For the first time in our history, people can buy electricity units on their mobile phones, we take it for granted now but a few years ago you had to go and queue at the ECG payment center to buy electricity,”
He further indicated that the government has built more courts for the judiciary than any other government did.
Also, he said, the government has provided cars and equipment to the Ghana Armed Forces and the Police more than any government.
“Our government has implemented many transformational policies. for the first time in our history as a country, Ghana has successfully issued a digital national ID card which has provided a unique identity for all Ghanains.
“For the first time in our history, Ghana has implemented Mobile Money interoperability between the Mobile Money accounts of telcos and the bank accounts of the banks. Ghana is the first country in the whole of Africa to have done this Mobile Money Inyterorpablity between bank accounts and MoMo accounts.
This has made Ghana the fastest-growing mobile money market in Africa. In fact, when we came into office MoMo transactions in Ghana were just 78 cedis per year. Last year they reached GHS1.9 trillion cedis, it tells you what we have done,” he said.