The Chairman of the Communication Committee of the New Patriotic Party’s 2008 election campaign, Dr. Arthur Kobina Kennedy, says claims by Mr. Koku Anyidoho of the National Democratic Congress that Nana Akufo-Addo has promised to build 10 public universities is not correct.

In a statement he signed, Dr. Kennedy said what the NPP Presidential candidate pledged at Kasoa during a rally of the NPP, was to ensure that every region has a public University. “This will require new public Universities in Brong-Ahafo, Eastern and Volta regions.”

Read below Dr. Kennedy’s statement.

NPP CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE STATEMENT ON NDC LIES REGARDING EDUCATION

23rd July, 2008

The NDC is at it again.

Despite their claims to newness, the party of Rawlings continues to lie to Ghanaians.

Yesterday, the Director of Communications for the NDC Campaign Team, Mr Koku Anyidoho, claimed on Joy fm’s “MORNING SHOW” and other stations that the NPP Presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo had promised at Kasoa to build ten public Universities during his tenure as President and urged Ghanaians not to believe him. Almost simultaneously, other NDC operatives, aided by their allies in the media were claiming that Nana Akufo-Addo had pledged at Wa to make University education free.

Both charges are false and the NDC knows that they are false. They are part of a deliberate campaign of lies meant to damage Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP’s credibility on education.

At Kasoa, the NPP Presidential candidate pledged to ensure that every region has a public University. This will require new public Universities in Brong-Ahafo, Eastern and Volta regions. Alongside these new Universities, the NPP is committed to expanding the capacities of existing public Universities, particularly the UDS with campuses in all three northern regions and the Tarkwa School of Mines with consideration of upgrading the latter into a University of Mining, Energy and Allied Technologies.

In the north, while addressing a rally, Nana Akufo-Addo said the following on free education “President Kufuor has made primary education free across the country. In my time as President, I shall make secondary education equally free across the country. After that, the nation can then look at making University education progressively free”.

The NPP believes education is fundamental to the modern country we seek to build. That is why Nana Akufo-Addo is committing the next NPP government to the following educational initiatives:

• Extension of the School Feeding Program to all primary schools
  
• Free Senior High School Education
  
  
• Putting teachers at the centre of the new educational policy by training more of them better, reviewing salaries frequently, paying rural allowances and committing more resources to distance learning
  
  
• Reducing student-to-teacher ratios across the board. This will be done at the University level by enlisting the help of Ghanaian Professors in renowned Universities across the world to teach courses at our local Universities by using video and tele-conferencing technology
  
  
• Building public Universities in all regions that do not have them while expanding existing ones
  
  
• Building Research and Technology Parks in collaboration with our private sector and Universities to convert ideas into businesses as soon as possible to create wealth and jobs
  
  
• Providing opportunities for working people to continually upgrade their skills and make them more qualified for the jobs of the new economy we seek to build.

Each one of these promises has been carefully examined and the funding identified.

As Nana Akufo-Addo has stated repeatedly, we desire a campaign based on issues, ideas and facts. However, we shall resist all attempts to distort our record and our pronouncements.

The NPP believes in free education but the NDC does not. As the authoritative “Daily Graphic” reported on October 9th, 2000, Prof. Mills and the NDC do not believe free education and free health are possible. The NDC should stop lying about our promises as we seek to take our nation forward.

Let us not put the NPP’s great plans on education and other things at risk by voting for the NDC. They can only take us back.

Let us move forward!
Yenko yanim!
Won ya wor hie!

Arthur Kobina Kennedy
(Chair, Communication Committee)
2008 NPP Campaign