Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin has acknowledged that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) lost support among Ghana’s middle class due to the difficult decisions made to stabilise the economy. Speaking on PM Express on JoyNews on October 27, the Effutu MP stated that the financial sector haircut and various austerity measures alienated many of the party’s core supporters, including professionals and business owners.
“We lost the middle class, our own base—businessmen—because there was some haircut… Pensioners and educated individuals who would typically vote for the NPP were disappointed,” he noted. “The fact that a former Chief Justice, appointed by our own administration, was protesting in the streets for her pension is understandable.”
Afenyo-Markin explained that these tough choices were made in light of a global economic crisis that necessitated Ghana’s need to stabilise its economy at all costs. “We faced significant challenges. We tried, but we were not entirely successful,” he admitted. “In the effort to stabilise the economy, certain hard decisions had to be made.”
Despite these setbacks, the NPP did achieve significant milestones, including the introduction of Free SHS and the One District, One Factory initiative. He argued that these interventions transformed lives and opened new opportunities across the country.
“Ours is to create a platform to build the human resource capacity of the Ghanaian people. We did that successfully,” he said. He also defended the government’s record on social policies. “Recently in Parliament, I challenged the Majority Leader to name a single social intervention policy the NDC has initiated and implemented successfully since 1992.
“They have zero,” he said, citing Free SHS, 1D1F, school feeding, health insurance, and the mass transport system as legacies of NPP governments. Afenyo-Markin reflected on his own humble beginnings to underscore the value of education and social support. He recalled nearly dropping out of St. Augustine’s College until he won a bursary introduced by Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom.
“But for that bursary, I would have dropped out,” he said, adding that policies like Free SHS have given hope to thousands of young Ghanaians. He said, despite the economic pain and loss of political goodwill, the NPP must continue to highlight its achievements.
“In spite of all these disappointments, we should still let the Ghanaian people know the good things we did,” he said. “We shouldn’t shy away from our success stories.”
Source: Abubakar Ibrahim
