Respect men of God; NPP advises government appointees

The New Patriotic Party has described as “offensive and reprehensible” the government’s response to statements by the former Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church, Rt. Revd Dr Samuel Asante-Antwi, following his criticism of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government.

According to the NPP, it was wrong for appointees of the government to have said “many disrespectful things about this noble man of God” when he only echoed the legitimate sentiments of Ghanaians he encountered everyday by virtue of his calling and urged President Atta Mills to call those appointees to order.

“The culture of insults which has become the stock in trade of the NDC is bad enough. But to extend this to the clergy for expressing the concerns of the broad public is distasteful and completely unacceptable,” the statement signed by the Director of Communications of the NPP, Mr Kwaku Kwarteng, said.

The statement said, Rev. Asante-Antwi was not the first person to point out the cries and groaning of the ordinary Ghanaian adding that the founder of the NDC, Mr Jerry Rawlings had on several occasions referred to the performance of the current NDC government as “mediocre and slow”.

“He has further warned that unless the government steps up its performance, the NDC will have no message for Ghanaians in 2012,” the statement said.

It said that view had been supported by economic research institutions such as Forbes International that had classified Ghana among the nine worst managed economies in the world.

It added that recently, the Institute for Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of Ghana in an extensive review of Ghana’s economy, also concluded that the economy under-performed in 2009 compared with how it performed in 2008.

Source: Daily Graphic