Source: newsthemegh.com
The health and educational sectors of Ghana under the leadership of the National Patriotic Party, led by President Akufo-Addo, have been characterized by former president John Dramani Mahama in a very negative light.
Mr. Mahama claims that the National Health Insurance Plan is in dire straits in terms of providing healthcare.
“Our country is in a mess, everything has gone backwards,” Mr. Mahama said in a speech to party delegates and supporters at Lekpe Todomey as part of his campaign to lead the NDC as flagbearer in the 2024 general elections. “National health insurance – if you go with your card, if you’re lucky you get paracetamol, most of the time you have to go and buy from the drug store yourself.”
On schooling, he said, “Our educational system is in shreds, the youngsters go for three to four weeks before returning home to make room for another set to come.
When children go to school, the food that is served to them is so subpar that, if a parent doesn’t pack a lunch for their child, by the time the child returns from school, he has lost so much weight from a lack of nutritional food.
When they go to the dining hall, the child who told the former Ghanaian leader that “they give them black tea in the morning, that’s all, and so the money that their parents give them he uses it to buy bread so when they’re going to the dining hall, he cuts his own bread and goes with his bread to drink the black tea,” said.
While lamenting the situation of the nation’s high schools, he informed the audience that “We were building dormitories in practically all the schools so that when the pupils come and they are many, everyone will receive a place to stay.”
The government mortgaged the GETFUND and took out a loan against it to build STEM schools, so the already-existing secondary schools that had projects going on all came to a rest after we left office, and the dormitory and classroom buildings also ceased to exist.
Ghanaians are asking the NDC back because “we were building community day schools called E-Blocks, several of those E-Blocks were at an advanced level of development when we left, and because they’ve abandoned those E-Blocks, our children can’t go in to study,” he continued.