NDC is a gov’t of PR and Settings — Kojo Oppong Nkrumah
The Member of Parliament for Ofoase Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has jabbed the Mahama-led NDC administration, describing it as a government more concerned about optics and public relations stunts than with actual policy solutions that address the realities of the ordinary Ghanaian.
According to him, the current government has over the past months, resorted to what he described as theatrical announcements in place of taking decisive action, pointing particularly to the administration’s “lack of concern” towards the current public uproar over rising electricity bills.
Speaking to Journalists ahead of President Mahama’s 2026 State of the Nation Address (SONA) in Parliament on Friday, Oppong Nkrumah “diagnosed” Ghana’s economy, staring from where he labelled as the “cocoa belt to the factory floor, from the rice paddies of the north to the electricity bills of the urban middle class.”
“The average middle class person is now complaining about a hike in electricity tariffs even beyond the 24% that has been announced. And now the government has started another PR gimmick of announcing a committee. You know, this government does a lot of setting and PR gimmick. So, they’ve announced a committee investigating. They know exactly what is going on,” he argued.
When pressed on whether the committee could yield any meaningful results, Oppong Nkrumah was maintained that “they know, but it’s part of their PR gimmickry.”
He also pointed to what he described as a “laughable exercise” in rebranding, citing the government’s decision to rename the NPP’s Gold 4 Reserves programme in Parliament just a day before SONA.
“Yesterday, for example, they came to Parliament to rebrand the gold for reserves programme. They say they now call it ‘Accelerated Reserve Accumulation.’ I mean, it sometimes even gets laughable, but it’s all because they are just doing a lot of PR,” he added.
Dressed in black alongside fellow Minority MPs, Oppong Nkrumah explained why the Minority had chosen such a “visible expression of mourning and solidarity,” noting that the caucus is protesting “catastrophic trading and monetary policy decisions” affecting the cocoa sector.
“For those who do not understand the role cocoa plays in the Ghanaian economy, they will downplay this issue. Cocoa is a major driver of employment and job creation in the economy. The statistics are that about one million people are directly involved as cocoa farmers and these cocoa farmers have farm hands. They have dependents. If every cocoa farmer has about three farm hands and dependents, you’re talking about four million Ghanaians affected by bad trading decisions and monetary policy decisions that have been made by this administration,” he asserted.
The MP further argued that the farming crisis is not unique to cocoa. Rice and maize farmers, he said, are suffering the “collateral damage” of the same monetary policy decisions.
“If you talk to other farmers such as rice and maize farmers, they would also tell you that they are having their own hardships because of, in particular, the monetary policy regime that we are currently running. Rice farmers have produced, they have borrowed money, they have produced rice, they’ve milled rice but now imported rice is cheaper than locally produced rice
“And so, they are running into debt and they are not sure that next year they will be able to farm. I’ve had the opportunity to visit some of the rice farms, some of the rice mills, and it’s a heartbreaking story,” he lamented.
The Ranking Member on Parliament’s Economy and Development Committee also criticized the Bank of Ghana’s “monetary sterilization strategy,” which according to him, has artificially suppressed inflation figures while leaving ordinary Ghanaians with “empty pockets and dwindling purchasing power.”
“I’ve been telling you guys over and over again that the methods the government is using are the reasons for which they are able to measure and tell you that result, but it doesn’t mean that the lived experience of people reflects that,” he said.
“If you want to control inflation by sterilization, GHC62 billion in 2025 sterilized, the cry in town will be that there’s no money in our pocket. And so, when the item is produced and even the price is there, the trader at a point will say let me reduce my price and get rid of it,” he added.
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