President Mahama Will Not Be Distracted By Falsehood – John Jinapor

John Jinapor, the spokesperson for President John Dramani Mahama says the president will not be distracted by falsehood being peddled by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

He was reacting to statements by the NPP to the effect that the new president and his vice had contributed to the economic failures of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Chairman of the party, Jake Obetsebi Lamptey minced no words in characterizing the president as an incompetent, indecisive leader whose track record as the head of the economic management team was nothing but a failure.

However, John Jinapor who spoke to Joy FM’s Kojo Oppong Nkrumah on the Super Morning Show Wednesday discounted the claims, saying Ghana’s economy chalked up unprecedented growth while Mr Mahama headed the economic management team.

He also described as false, the NPP’s claim that President Mahama admitted to ‘running the show’ as vice president under late President Mills’ leadership, maintaining that President Mahama was proud of what he did to complement Professor Mills’ efforts.

“We welcome that debate but the debate of falsehood, the debate of inaccuracies we will not want to be part of it,” Jinapor said.

Admitting that government had struggled with some aspects of the economy, especially the free fall of the cedi, the president’s spokesperson noted those challenges were not peculiar to Ghana.

Regardless, he said, “We are doing whatever we can to arrest the situation. We have demonstrated sincerity, we have demonstrated commitment to duty and we are tackling it.”

The Director of Communications of the NPP, Nana Akomea who spoke on the same programme, rejected Mr Jinapor’s accusations that the party peddled falsehood at its Tuesday press conference. He said all the sought to do was to make the point John Mahama and his vice “are part of the same old story of failed leadership that we have had in the last three years.”

He said the two – Mahama as vice president and Kwesi Amissah-Arthur as Governor of the Bank of Ghana – had total oversight over the Ghanaian economy, yet “the biggest failure of the NDC is the economy.”

He said interest rates were high and that prices of goods and services had kept increasing despite the fact that inflation was low. All these were making “the cost of living..absolutely impossible.”

“And we (NPP) are saying that this was the same team…(whose) record is not good and you can’t run away from it.”