Ghanaian politicians have been implored to be sure of promises they make when seeking power.
This comes after President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s ‘unpalatable’ reply at a radio station in Cape Coast that he and his government had not promised to build a harbour at Cape Coast.
It later emerged that the NPP administration had actually promised to give the people of Cape Coast a harbour and Airport at a political rally in 2020.
Although the President since admitted his mistake after facts were brought to his attention, people who Mynewsafric.com spoke to expressed their displeasure and disagreement with the President, saying Ghanaian politicians always find excuses to justify their failed promises.
They told Melody Hini-Amoako that the only thing that will appease the electorates is when the president of the republic fulfills his promises.
Many lamented on the government’s failure to fulfill most of the promises it made during the campaign season.
A lady who was spoken to said “I think it was a way to deceive Ghanaians and make them feel the John Mahama-led administration is incompetent to win their votes. He made mention in his comment that they are building two harbours around a suburb of Cape Coast which makes it impossible for another one to be built at Cape Coast.
“If that’s the case, then as a leader, he could have just told the people that, those harbours are closer and looking at the budget, they should manage them for now and he will attend to them later. As humans, they would have understood but he made promises to the people and later told them it was a mistake. No leader does that. That was a clear deception to win the people’s votes because they voted for him based on that promise.”
Another also had this to say, “when politicians want to come to power, they do a whole lot just to convince the electorates to vote for them but what the president did was not good at all so we caution all politicians that when they want to come to power, they should know the kind of things they say to electorates because we the youth now have our eyes on the ground observing everything critically.”
The president in an earlier interview on Cape Coast-based radio station Eagles FM bluntly denied that his party the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had made any commitment to undertake the said infrastructural project in the region before he later apologised to the people of Cape Coast claiming the promise was a mistake they made.
“Formally I was not getting him because you cannot promise something and say you did not promise but he rectified everything by saying he is a human being and I think he did the right thing by coming out to apologise,” a young guy said.