Review of flagship programs needless – Sammy Gyamfi

The National Communications Officer for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi says government plans to review all 16 flagship programs including the Free Senior High School is an abomination and shouldn’t be accepted by Ghanaians. 

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, speaking in a Citi FM interview said it’s one of the many decisions taken at a 3-day crunch cabinet meeting, held at Peduase Lodge to proffer solutions to the economic hardships in the country.

He further indicated no program will be left out of the review.

“All the 16 flagship programs are up to be looked at. The President has directed that the flagship programs should be protected and fully implemented to ensure that the impact is achieved. However, he wants it done within the constraints of item number 2 which is the fiscal framework we are working with. If based on the caps that we are working with we will have to rescope a particular flagship program, we will do it and see how much we can achieve.”

“All the 16 are up for discussion, none is off-limit. Only that the President has laid down the red line that we will not compromise on the fiscal consolidation agenda because our real problem over the years has been a year-on-year deficit going out of hand” he added.

Reacting to the news on Good Morning Ghana show on Metro TV, Thursday morning, Sammy Gyamfi said the review as opposed by government if implemented would amount to dishonesty and campaigning on lies into office.

“I reject the proposal for this government to review certain policies implemented. I reject it with contempt because this government has a social contract with the people of this country, and that social contract includes the payment of allowance to teacher trainees and nurses trainees and they must keep religiously to that contract. They said we have the money, they said the money is here. Maybe I don’t know, but they say we are not broke.

“When as politicians we campaign on certain promises and are elected into office based on such, it must matter to us of keeping it. You can’t just wake up one day and make a sudden U-turn of the very so-called flagship policies they promised the people of this country. When they have already told us that in their dictionary, the word review means cancellation and I’m not sure they’ve changed that definition”  he said.