Prez Mills fails to address the issue of violence in his national address
Audrey Micah, Ghanadot

Accra, Feb 20, Ghanadot - Dr. Arthur Kennedy, a Communication Director for Nana Addo’s campaign team for 2008 elections have expressed his disappointment of President John Atta Mills failure to address the issue of violence that has engulfed the nation after the election.

“I am more concerned about what the President didn’t say; I was disappointed with him for not addressing the violence, during and after the elections.

“I think that we should not be in a permanent state of campaign where elections come and go for us to govern. Unfortunately some of the act by the transition committee on the NDC side was unfair, there were more important attacks on the NPP members at Agbogbloshie and other places, and the violence at Tamale so I think it would have been a very fine opportunity to address these issues.”

He said when a government starts raking up the past in a partisan manner; it hinders the peace and progress in the country, but agrees with President Mills' attempt to restructure the educational system.

“I think his pronouncement on education was good. Our educational system is not facing crisis, but it is in crisis. If you look at the Primary level, the majority of who passed are from the private schools and I actually think we need to address these problems and the problems at the university level”.

Dr. Arthur Kennedy said the NDC promised to improve the educational system in the country during its campaign, but he was surprised that the president forgot to talk on it during his State of the Nation's Address.

“They talked about having a national educational solution, so that we can have a consensus on education, saying also that their government will change the system from 4 years to 3 years. I also thought I would hear him address the issue of accidents taking toll on our roads but none of that happened”.

On economy, Dr. Kennedy said it would have been nice for the president to have told the nation the rate of growth on the economy in 2008 but that to him was not the case.

“It would have been nice for the president to tell us about the rate of growth on the economy in 2008, it will be fair when he talked about the debt to GDP ratio and when he talked about inflation for example, it would been nice to have put it in contest”.

“It is also important not to assume that increased expenditure on their own are bad, the question is what those expenditures were used for. If indeed we looked at what those expenditures were for, you know, for providing potable water, sanitation and the rest, I am sure that we will all conclude that it was increase expenditure but for worthy cause”.

He agreed with President Mills idea of cutting expenditure, adding that since the donor communities are tightening their belts and as a developing country like Ghana, we also need to do same. He also supported the president’s idea to review the buying of the two presidential jets, but said “we should be careful not to do what I call vindictive reviews”.