Why feign ignorance when you lauded Mahama for free SHS in 2015? – NDC to Akufo-Addo

The main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is wondering why President Akufo-Addo is pretending not remember applauding John Dramani Mahama for commencing the free SHS programme in 2015.

According to the NDC, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) cannot take credit for the free SHS programme because it was first introduced by the NDC and launched by former President Mahama in 2015.

Addressing a press conference in Accra on Thursday, November 26, 2020, the National Communications Officer of the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi noted that President Akufo-Addo even applauded Mr Mahama for commencing free SHS and should, therefore, not pretend and feign ignorance he does not recall doing so.

This response comes after Nana Akufo-Addo expressed shock Mr Mahama is taking credit for the introduction of his flagship campaign promise.

The President added that the “lies” from the NDC presidential candidate “are borne out of one thing, and that is his campaign is failing to catch up with the electorate. He has seen that his campaign is collapsing in confusion, fabrications and now outright lies.”

But Mr Gyamfi told journalists that: “Ironically, President Akufo-Addo who says he’s surprised that President Mahama or anybody will suggest that it was the Mahama NDC government which introduced free SHS in 2015 actually lauded and applauded John Dramani Mahama in 2015 when he launched free SHS seven years ago.

“So why is President Akufo-Addo feigning ignorance or why is he trying to create the impression he has forgotten about the fact that he himself applauded President Mahama for commencing the implementation of free SHS? The fact once again has exposed him…”

Touching on the history of free SHS, Mr Gyamfi recalled: “President Mahama launched the programme in 2015 and started with 350,000 day students.

“Not just that, in fact, the textbooks that secondary schools today are using under the free SHS programme were all procured by the Mahama administration in 2016 and they were 3.6 million textbooks.

“The free implementation of the free SHS including boarding students has been made possible as a result of the over 46 community day senior high schools that John Dramani Mahama built but for which we would have experienced a quadruple track and not the double track by this time.

“And so, our friends in the NPP must learn to give credit where credit is due. You came, met a programme which has already been launched. Over 360,000 day students were not paying school fees, you came and continued it which is good because governance is continuing but don’t claim credit for something you did not start.”