Presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Mahama, has said Ghanaians are disappointed in the Akufo-Addo government because it has failed to meet the high expectations it raised prior to the 2016 General Elections.
According to former President John Dramani Mahama, president Akufo-Addo who was then seeking to unseat him created an impression that he was going to transform Ghana into “heaven” in his first four-year term hence, raising the hopes of Ghanaians.
He opined that Nana Addo had made many unrealistic promises, including promising to transform Ghana in 18 months upon his assumption of office.
Mr. Mahama recalled that he had predicted, after the NPP won the 2016 elections, that its government would have a tough time managing the high expectations it had raised.
He said the president and his administration’s failure to live up to the expectations of Ghanaians has left many citizens disgruntled and yearning for a change of government.
“It is a history of dashed expectations. One of the things that I said after Nana Addo took over was that one of the main challenges he would face is how to manage people’s expectations because he raised expectations so high both verbal and nonverbal communications. He gave an impression that in 4 years, he was going to change Ghana into heaven. He actually said that he would transform this country in 18 months,” he said in an interview on Woezor TV.
Mr. Mahama averred that the country’s developmental challenges are deep-seated as result, it is advisable for aspiring leaders of the country to let the people appreciate that the numerous developmental challenges cannot be resolved at once and thus, make moderate pledges so as not raised the people’s expectations to levels that they cannot meet which will leave them disgruntled.
Buttressing his opinion with the 2016 promises of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the former president said the NPP had raised the hope of many Ghanaians in terms of providing employment through the One District, One Factory (1D1F) initiative it had promised to implement. But the government, he asserted, has failed to deliver on the promise after winning the elections and has now resorted to refurbishing existing factories, dashing the hopes Ghanaians had of getting jobs.
“The challenges are deep-seated and you need to work at them. Change will come gradually not overnight. And that is why you need to manage the expectations and let the people know that it will take hard work, it will take unity of purpose for us to be able to change our country. But if you come and create the impression that you are going to build a factory in every district and people are going to get jobs and at the end of 4 years, according to your own account, you’ve built only over 50 factories, many of which were there before you even came.
You give money and they build a fence wall then you go and put One District, One Factory when they ask ‘where is our factory?’ you say this one (and they will say) ‘but this factory was there before you came into office.’ So managing people’s expectations is important and the point is our projects and what we tell the people we will do should be realistic so that they can see that it has to do with what is achievable” he stated.
