Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. has accused the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) of being the most docile and ineffective political party in Ghana’s history.
Speaking to Kwame Owusu Danso on Pan African Television’s Good Morning Africa Show, the celebrated Ghanaian journalist could not fathom why the NDC, despite having a significant number of representatives in Parliament has been resting on its oars while giving the incumbent government a field day to inflict unbearable hardship on Ghanaians.
Making reference to the historic ‘Kumi Preko Demo’ that piled pressure on the then NDC government to withdraw the very unpopular Value Added Tax (VAT) on items, Mr. Pratt emphatically stated that despite Parliament being dominated by the NDC in 1995, the opposition was able to effectively agitate and marshal thousands of Ghanaians to vehemently oppose VAT.
Pratt who is also the General Secretary of the Socialist Movement of Ghana believes same cannot be said of the opposition in this hung Parliament.
“Unfortunately, the political landscape is such that we’re not getting any of the kinds of protests and shouting that we got in the past,” he exclaimed.
“Kumi Preko” was a result of serious mobilization and organization, we don’t have that level of mobilsation because the opposition is asleep, inept and completely ineffective,” an impassioned Kwesi Pratt revealed.
He further stated that the opposition has woefully failed to pile pressure on government to desist from taking decisions that are inimical to the interest of Ghanaians.
He warned that if the opposition continues to watch with hands in loins and not act, government will continue to inflict misery on the people.
He made reference to the injunction that some minority MPs sought to place on the implementation of the controversial E-levy at the Apex Court and the reaction it was greeted with when it was unanimously thrown out.
Former Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Hon. Inussah Fuseini who disagreed with Mr. Pratt’s assertion opined that the MPs may have resorted to a different strategy to thwart the E-levy and is not being unassertive as Mr. Pratt claims.
“Opposition to government policy is actively and seriously fought in Parliament. I can say without any fear of contradiction that many of the scandals and policy inconsistencies have been fought in Parliament (by Minority MPs).
Pratt, however, was having none of that and stated his discontent with whichever tactic the minority MPs were seeking to employ.
He stated, “It is a bogus strategy, whichever strategy that these MPs want to use is ostensibly not working, it is a bogus strategy!”
Source: Mypublisher24.com
