The 2016 campaign manager of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Peter Mac Manu has accused President John Mahama of “abusing incumbency” with his ‘Accounting to the People’ tour.
Mahama is on a nationwide tour showcasing developmental projects undertaken during his reign over the last three years as well as commissioning a few ones while encouraging Ghanaians to retain him in power to continue with the projects.
The main opposition feels embittered about it, claiming Mahama, who is the flagbearer of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2016 elections, is using state resources to campaign.
“We should be able to distinguish purely party activities from government activities, however thin the line is,” Mac Manu told Accra-based Joy FM.
“These are areas of concern on abuse of incumbency and how they relate to impartiality of elections… if you use government activities to portray the image of your party then it’s unfair to Ghana’s presidential candidates… if you look at the activities I think it is not purely government activity. I think there should be some rules or guidelines in this. The speeches that are made does not suggest the inference you are making.”
When his attention was drawn to a similar exercise embarked on during the tenure of ex-President John Kufuor, the former national chairman of the NPP said: “Things that went bad eight years ago should not be repeated now… making reference to the past does not help us as a people.”
Meanwhile, Mahama will be taking his ‘Accounting to the People’ tour to the Volta region in the coming days. He has already been to the Western and Eastern regions.
