The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) will beat its arch-rival and biggest opposition party, the NDC to the launching of manifestos for the December 2020 general elections.
This is according to the party’s General Secretary, John Boadu, the NPP is scheduled to release its manifesto on August 22, 2020.
Mr. Boadu made this known at a press conference on Monday, August 10, 2020.
Whilst announcing the date for the launch of the manifesto, Mr. Boadu also urged Ghanaians to be on the lookout for the policies the party has for Ghana for the next four years.
“The NPP vision on our way forward captured in our manifesto, 2020 will hopefully be shared with Ghanaians on August 22, 2020. We will be having a steering committee tomorrow [Tuesday] to validate and accept this date.”
“We will also have a National Council, which is the second-highest decision-making body in the absence of the Annual Delegates Conference on the same day in order to launch the manifesto. We ask you to look on that day to heart-warming policies detailing how with your support we will transform Ghana for the benefit of all.”
There is bound to be a bitter battle on policies between the NDC and NPP in the content of their manifesto.
For instance, a brewing tussle over who would first introduce free tertiary education in Ghana is likely going to be on the front burner.
On July 22, an NDC communications member in the Ashanti Region, Onasis Rosely Kobby stated categorically that free University education is one of the main policy proposals of the NDC as captured in their yet-to-be released official manifesto.
However, while being interviewed about two weeks after the NDC hinted at offering free university education in its manifesto, President Akufo Addo, curiously hinted that his government had plans to offer free university education.
“For now what has been put in place is a system where students at the tertiary level are provided loans while in school to help them cater for their needs but we’re considering free Tertiary education too,” the President stated on Kumasi-based Wuntumi FM.
“I don’t want to give a timeline but I’m sure it’s possible,” he said.
The Akufo Addo administration pushed free Senior High School education to reap huge political dividends in the 2016 election that saw the party win by a huge margin of some one million votes. However, since coming to power, the policy has been more difficult to implement than the NPP made the Ghanaians public to believe. The government had virtually been forced to scrape odd avenues to finance the capital intensive policy. It is, therefore, a mystery, how the NPP administration will take on the additional headache of free tertiary education.
Critics are of the opinion that the president was simply making that statement out of mischief and in an attempt to knock the wind out of the sails of the NDC, who have generally been lacklustre about their policy initiatives for 2020.