The Minority in Parliament has accused the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), of being selective in picking the facts to back their supposed achievements in their manifesto.
At a press conference on Tuesday, the Minority refereed to instances in the manifesto where the NDC chose to tout its achievements by making references to the last two years, when it should have been eight years.
According to the minority, this could only be described as a deliberate attempt by the Mahama-led administration to mislead the voting public.
Speaking at a press conference, the minority spokesperson on agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, made reference to the declining fortunes of the agricultural sector in the last 8 years as an example.
He explained that “for subsidized fertilizer, the NDC selected the year 2008 and the year 2013 to show that distribution has increased over the whole period of eight years. They failed to mention that there was no distribution of subsidized fertilizers in the year 2014, and that only 90,000 metric tonnes of the 180,000 was distributed in the year 2015.”
The Minority made similar observations with government’s rice projections where it said the NDC had overseen a period of 8 years, but showed numbers for only 2008 and 2014, to say that rice production has increased over the period.
“What they failed to show was that, rice production was down in the intervening years, 2009 to 2013 and after 2014. What is worse is they failed to mention that rice imports rose from 425,390 metric tonnes in 2008, to 630,200 in 2015,” Dr. Afriyie Akoto added.
He also indicated that, his research was from the Statistical Service based on custom declarations at Tema and Takoradi ports, adding that, “I am sure the NDC had access to this information; but decided to go quiet on it and rather come out with very selective information.”
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana