President John Dramani Mahama has described as cheap politics the opposition New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) proposal to extend the service period for army recruits from 25 years to 30 years, thus pushing back their retirement.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Flagbearer also claimed this particular promise was a mere afterthought on the NPP’s part as this proposal did not feature in its 2016 manifesto.
Currently, army recruits retire after 25 years, but the Chairman of the NPP’s sub-committee on Defense and Interior, Dominic Nitiwul, told journalists on Monday about the party’s intent to extend the period of service before retirement by five years.
However, in an address to party supporters at Akroso in the Eastern Region, President Mahama retorted to the NPP, “you have a manifesto. The things you want to do you have written in your manifesto; but why didn’t you write this one [proposal to review the army retirement] in your manifesto?”.
He thus accused them of simply pandering to the soldiers in the name of votes, saying, “because of politics, they want the soldiers’ support so they decided to do something that would get the soldiers’ support but it was an afterthought for them.”
“Our politics has moved forward. Ghanaians no longer take these kind of promises on face value. It is not everything that will fly with Ghanaians.
These promises and other things will not fly. It is the experience and delivery that Ghanaians want.”
“We in the NDC, if we won’t do something, we won’t say we will do it. But if we say we will do it, we will do it. When we promise, we deliver.
We don’t make empty promises,” President Mahama assured the electorate.
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