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The New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential running mate, Dr Alhaji Mahamadu Bawumia has questioned the rationale behind the campaign slogan of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) -‘Changing Lives, Transforming Ghana’, when the administration has brought nothing but untold hardships on the people.

The NPP running mate argues that it is illogical for the NDC to even use the slogan, stressing that it is in direct conflict with its own record and the current situation.

“The NDC and President Mahama are in Cape Coast today bragging that they are transforming lives and changing Ghana, when their own records do not support so,” Dr Bawumia asserted.

Addressing a gathering of supporters at Patase in Kumasi to mark the official campaign launch of the Nhyiaeso Constituency of the party, the NPP vice presidential candidate pointed out that, both the micro and macro aspects of the economy have consistently witnessed retrogression ever since the NDC took over in 2009, a fact which he said could be substantiated by looking at available figures.

“Do the NDC and President Mahama really understand transformation; I had a good laugh when I first saw their slogan. I am tempted to believe that they have a different understanding of transformation,” Dr Bawumia noted.

According to Dr Bawumia, the NDC has wasted precious opportunity handed to them by the NPP in 2009 to have grown the country’s economy and make it robust, but all they have done is to spend cash unnecessarily at the expense of the poor tax payer.

“When the NPP came to power in 2001, we met a HIPC economy, our GDP growth was just 3.7 per cent but due to the good policies and hard work of the economic team, we took the economy from 3.7 to 9.1 per cent in 2008 and this was done without oil,” he emphasized.

The NPP running mate therefore questioned how the NDC under President Mahama have transformed Ghana’s economy after moving from it 9.1 per cent to 3.2 per cent and also increasing Ghana’s debt stock as well as interest accruals from loans.

“How do you take credit for a transformation under such moribund economy; NPP left Ghanaians a per capita income of $1,266 dollars after meeting it at $440; that is what we call transformation, $826 dollars was added but the NDC even with oil and huge loans, they have added only $74 dollars,” he pointed out.

Describing the NDC rendition of transformation as propaganda, the NPP running mate also chided the Mahama administration for collapsing all the laudable social interventions introduced by the NPP and thus worsening the plight of many Ghanaians.

“They have collapsed NHIS, they say transformation, they have suspended teacher training and nursing allowances, they say it’s a transformation, interest rate was less than 25%, today it is above 35%, banks used to chase customers with loans but today Ghanaians cannot afford to secure loan facilities from banks,” Dr Bawumia emphasized.

The former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana also lamented the increasing rate of unemployment and general despondency amongst Ghanaians, as a result of massive and unprecedented corruption under the current administration.

“The only thing we may agree with the NDC is that they are indeed transforming corruption in Ghana. GYEEDA, SADA and SUBA amongst other several financial misappropriations in the country,” he stressed.

The NPP vice presidential candidate, therefore, observed that Ghanaians will be the best judges of the so-called transformation, adding that farmers, teachers, nurses, traders, civil servants, police, military, Kayayes and mostly importantly Chiefs, are all crying for salvation.

Other speakers at the occasion included the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the party, Mr Bernard Antwi Boasiako, who hit back at the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Alhaji Collins Dauda, over his unsavoury comments about the NPP and the Muslim community in the country.

The MP for Bosomtwe, Simmon Osei Mensah, the Parliamentary Candidates-elect for Subin and Nhyiaeso, Messrs. Eugene Antwi and Kennedy Kusi Kankam, also addressed the supporters.