Sam George gives ‘abysmal’ Akufo-Addo 3 out of 10 for 1st term

The Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, Sam Nartey George, has said he will not be apologetic about his constructive criticism of the Akufo-Addo-led government.

He adds that he is not perturbed people refer to him as being that and, additionally, rude.

The vocal legislator of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) was speaking to Giovani Caleb on Wednesday, May 26 when he made these remarks.

He was speaking on 3FM Drive.

Dzata, as he is affectionately called, said there is nothing to apologize for when all he criticized the government about are apparent for all to see and no amount of pressure will make him back down and make apologies when there are none to make.

“Am I apologetic for my criticisms of [the president]? Absolutely not, because my criticisms of him are based on the standards he set. His criticism of Professor [John Evans Atta] Mills, his criticism of [former] president [John] Mahama and so I am holding him to his own standards.”

He, however, said the bashing f him for being unapologetic is just a fuss about nothing because he had “apologised to President Akufo-Addo even before he became president in the early days sometime in 2016 on Randy Abbey’s Good Morning Ghana show,” for criticisms he made out of what he attributed to youthful exuberance.

It was not just only President Akufo-Addo that he apologized to at the time but also “anybody that” he “may have wronged in the course of communication,” he said.

He further described Akufo-Addo as being a colossal failure because in his opinion, “the president had made some promises in November of 2016 in Tamale where he said if he was made president, in 18 months, he would transform Ghana and make Ghana better.

"Eighteen months have passed, it is five years on since he made the promises, over 60 months ago and the president has not done any of the things he promised to do and when you ask him, he attributes his failure to Covid-19 so it will only be fair if one criticizes him because he had all the 18 months to transform Ghana before Covid-19 struck.”

“I didn’t put a gun to his head to say he will transform the country in 18 months. He said he would transform it in 18 months and if he has failed, I think my criticism of him is fair,” he stressed.

Sam George cited what he referred to as failures in “the Ghana Card registration, Jack Where Are You and the Ghana Post GPS initiatives, the current sim card re-registration, the fight against illegal mining (Galamsey)” as things he had constructively criticized the government about for which he was rebuked afterwards.

But the things he “was seeking answers to are now clear for everyone to see,” he asserted.

The Ningo Prampram MP says he has lost faith in the president’s fight against corruption and Galamsey and there is nothing more the president can do than what he is doing now.

“In all fairness to Akufo-Addo, it isn’t that he can do better than what he is doing, he can’t do more than he is doing, he has come to the end of the development road.”

Sam George said if he were to rate the president’s performance on a scale of 0 to 10, he would rate him 3 because he has performed abysmally and he is unable to tackle youth unemployment, fix bad roads in the country and, most importantly, tackle the canker of family and friends.

“He [President Akufo-Addo] promised to provide jobs for the youth which he failed to do. He promised to fix the bad roads but we can all attest to the fact that our roads are getting terrible by the day.

"[Former] President Mahama had 19 siblings yet none of them was found in government yet we were told his government was family and friends but the same cannot be said of President Akufo-Addo as every sector of the country is occupied by his kinsmen.”