Former Vice President and NPP Presidential Candidate for the 2024 Elections, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has expressed agreement with NPP supporters over the reasons why the party lost the 2024 elections.
Addressing party faithful during the ongoing Thank You Tour, which commenced on Saturday, Dr. Bawumia echoed a number of factors, which he said, accounted for the NPP's defeat in both the Presidential and Parliamentary elections.
Dr. Bawumia noted that many reasons stemmed from government actions and inactions that frustrated the populace, including NPP's own supporters nationwide.
"Many people have ascribed reasons why we lost, and some, including our General Secretary, even believes it was spiritual," Dr. Bawumia said.
"But if you look at it carefully, the reasons are many and some were because of our own decisions and inaction. Cost of living went up and there was also the issue of arrogance of power."
Dr. Bawumia elaborated on various key issues, such as the e-levy and the debt exchange project, which drew full agreement and applause from the party supporters.
"We faced the issue of high cost of living, arrogance of power and refusing to listen. The party asked us to do a reshuffle but we did not listen for eight years. The party and Ghanaians told us they didn't want e-levy but we didn't listen."
"Mobile money account users are about 16m so if you bring something they don't like, you're incurring the wrath of all these people," Dr. Bawumia said.
"The party told us we should not touch pensioners in the debt restructuring. We had a meeting and decided against it and the President announced to Ghanaians that there would be no haircut, and everyone was happy, but in the end, there was a haircut and these bondholders, numbering about 800,000, were affected. These are the middle class, and each of them has dependents."
Dr. Bawumia also lamented the lack of support for some youth-centred programmes, NABCO and youth in afforestation.
"We also refused to pay NABCO workers, who number about 100,000, and virtually cancelled the programme. We also did not pay the youth in afforestation who were about 75,000."
Dr. Bawumia also highlighted the poor handling of priority projects in some regions, as well as the controversial national cathedral project.
"The national cathedral was also a very big issue for us because after so much money was pumped in, there was no progress."
Moving forward, Dr. Bawumia urged all party members to stay together and work very hard to correct the challenges of the party, as captured by the Prof. Mike Oquaye Committee.
