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NDC not running away from the PNDC -
Mahama
Sunyani (B/A), July 17, Ghanadot/GNA – Mr. John Dramani
Mahama, running mate to Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, Flag
bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), on
Wednesday said the NDC was not running away from the
Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) era.
"The NDC accepts responsibility for the bad or good things
that happened during the PNDC era," he said on Wednesday at
a press soirée he organized for the media in Sunyani as part
of his 10-day tour of the Brong Ahafo Region.
Mr Mahama said the NDC admitted that there were excesses in
that regime "which we have condemned and the leader of the
PNDC, Jerry John Rawlings has apologized to the nation on
many occasions".
He said: "We must also accept that we would not have a
country today called Ghana if the PNDC had not come during
that period, in that, by 1982 Ghana was growing at a
negative rate of -8 per cent and when it adopted the
Economic Recovery Programme to lift the country out of its
collapsed state, Ghana continued to record a growth of eight
per cent by 1986 and the growth has since been positive.”
He said that, for people to say that the NDC embraces the
good things in the PNDC and shied away from the negative
things of that regime was the abuse of history.
"In fact, I read history for my first degree and for France
to continue to celebrate annually the Marseilles Day, which
was the French Revolution where the Guillotine was used to
chop people’s head off showed that no country had a rosy
history all along.
"The PNDC era is part of our history and during that time,
hard decisions were taken to put the country back on the
path of growth.
"It was through the efforts of the PNDC that we now have a
constitutional rule which is working....It is out of the
excesses during the PNDC era that we now have a positive
approach in fighting human rights abuses thus getting Ghana
fast ahead of other countries.
"I was never a member of the PNDC but I can stand up for
events during that era."
He said the PNDC, as a military government, did not need the
mandate of the people for what it did.
Mr Mahama said today's young ones who were about voting age
did not see the horrible state of Ghana in the late 1970s
and early 80s to which Ghana had sunk.
He said those who had seen and experienced the horrible
state of Ghana at that time and the level it had risen to,
instead of applauding the PNDC’s achievement, were blinded
by political colourings and describe the PNDC era as
monstrous.
However, there are some who perpetrated economic atrocities
against the State and are now arrogating angelic platitudes
to themselves, when they were doing worse things to the
people now than the PNDC did.
Mr Mahama said the genuine love and enthusiasm that both the
young and the old were displaying to the NDC on its campaign
trail were so convincing that "our opponents cannot stand
the truth, honesty and humility and above all the deeper
love NDC has for Ghanaians under the slogan, ‘Mills - I care
for you’”.
GNA
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