2020 Elections will not be based on Free SHS – Joyce Bawa Mogtari

Free SHS will not be the yardstick for victory in the 2020 general elections, spokesperson of former President John Dramani Mahama has said.

The comment from Joyce Bawa Mogtari comes on the back of suggestions that the NPP may be retained in power for successfully implementing a number of promised policies, most importantly, Free SHS.

But the NDC is not convinced the NPP’s delivery of free secondary education in its current form will guarantee victory in the 2020 polls.

“Free SHS is a constitutional provision. It is enshrined in the constitution that we must ensure progressively free senior high school education…I do not think that is enough to keep the president in power even for the next four years, let alone 10 years,” Joyce Bawa Mogtari said in an interview.

Joyce Mogtari’s comments are in response to the President’s claims that the NDC was only seeking a return to power in order to scrap Free SHS. The President in an address in the Upper East Region on Tuesday said, “I know that there are people in this country who don’t want this policy, who have been campaigning against this policy. They are dreaming that they are going to come back to power to cancel the policy. I want them to know that they are not coming back to power, and the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy has come to stay.”

Read also: Ghanaians won’t give you power to ‘scrap’ free SHS – Akufo-Addo to NDC

However, Joyce Bawa Mogtari thinks that there are other equally important things that keep a president in power, and not necessarily Free Secondary Education.

“Many things will keep a government in power and I believe that many of the things that they promised have not materialised but if the president believes that he can fly on the wings of Free SHS to ensure his opponents never come back to power, then I believe he is deceiving himself and maybe there are some people refusing to advise him,” she said.