AFAG demonstrate against hardship, unfulfilled promises

A large crowd of demonstrators yesterday hit the streets of Accra to protest against what they perceive as a harsh economic condition and the failure of the government to fulfil its campaign promises.
Organised by the Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG), a pressure group, and identifiable groups, including the National Service Scheme (NSS), traders, students and some fishermen, the demonstration was peaceful and incident-free.
Clad in red clothes and bands, the demonstrators walked from the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, through the Nkrumah Avenue to Farisco and then to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to the Ministries and converged on the Accra Hearts of Oak Park, close to the Arts Centre.
The people, who demonstrated for well over four hours, carried placards, some of which read “Atta 419”, “Where is the better Ghana?”, “No premix”, “Atta Walk your talk”, “Atta fix the economy”, “Where is the jobs you promised us?”, “Avoid killer loans”, “Our children need pampers”.
Some of the demonstrators also wore pampers, others were also seen chewing kebab. Some fishermen sat in their canoe that had been mounted on a big truck and paddled as their way of demonstrating against the shortage of premix fuel.
According to Chief Superintendent B. Bonga of the Ghana Police Service, which provided 350 men and women to provide security, there was no major incident and the demonstration could, therefore, be described as “peaceful and incident-free for now”.
Addressing the demonstrators at the Hearts Park after the demonstration, Mr Kwabena Bonfeh, a leading member of the alliance, commended the people for turning out in their numbers to participate in the demonstration, which was “to defend our democracy from those who threaten it”.
“There are people in power who think they can perpetuate in Ghana a culture of deceit, falsehood, lies, misrepresentation, pretence, intimidation and vague propaganda which constitute the very anti-democratic credentials notable of illegitimate regimes,” he alleged.
He said most fishermen in the country could not go fishing, although this period was their peak fishing season, because some people were smuggling the fuel to other areas, thereby denying the fishermen the fuel to go fishing.
Mr Bonfeh, who is also the National Youth Organiser of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), added that salaries of teachers and nurses had been slashed, traders were facing precarious commodity prices and students had had their school fees increased astronomically all due to the bad economic decisions of the current administration.
Mr Bonfeh urged Ghanaians not to allow politicians to take them for a ride and should constantly raise reservation against President Mills’s decision to allow his Foreign and Sports Ministers who had corruption issues to answer to be parading without any charges.
He said President Mills had arrogated to himself the power to review the work of Parliament in violation of the principle of separation of powers and added that he was in constant touch with his lawyers and would take the matter to the law courts.
He also asked what had become of the 40 per cent women representation promised by the NDC in their manifesto, their pledge to fight corruption and the promise to relieve Ghanaians of their heavy tax burden, and added that the NDC used all these promises to deceive Ghanaians to vote them into power.
Mr Bonfeh disclosed that AFAG would replicate the demonstration throughout the 10 regional capitals in the country to educate Ghanaians on the corrupt and deceptive nature of the NDC administration and the need to keep it on its toes.
A national service person, Master Harold Boateng, noted that he was of the view that he would be employed at the Ministry of Health where he did his national service but this could not happen because of the conditionalities on a World Bank loan.
The demonstration also attracted some bigwigs of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) including Nana Ohene Ntow, NPP General Secretary; Mr Dan Botwe, Member of Parliament (MP) for Okere; Ms Shirley Ayokor Botchwey, MP for Weija; Dr Akoto Osei, a former Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance; and Mr Stephen Asamoah Boateng, a former Information Minister, who was in the company of his wife.