Campaign Promises Are Not Laws | NDC MP

MP for Sege Constituency, Alfred Abayateye has said the fact that a politician makes a campaign promise does not mean that it should be automatically fulfilled. Speaking on ETV’s Newspaper Review Wednesday, Mr. Abayateye said politicians make all kinds of comments on campaign platforms but that these promises are not legally binding. He was reacting to Joe Badu Ansah’s assertion that the Vice President made a campaign promise to allocate a substantial percentage of the oil proceeds to the Western Region which was captured in the Tuesday September 2, 2008 edition of The Ghanaian Times. “I’m so grateful that he (Vice President Mahama) said [that at] the time he made the statement he was not the Vice President of the land”, Mr. Abayateye said. “We all say things on campaign trails...even if the Vice President made that promise, does it mean every promise should be in the law?” Mr. Abayateye said he had nothing against the Western Region but that the country’s resources are supposed to be equally distributed across the regions of Ghana. He cited his home town, Ada, as an example of an area rich in salt but despite its natural resource, the area had not been apportioned a percentage of its resources. Continuing, Mr. Abayateye said that a law maker’s duty was to enact laws that would benefit the entire country and not just a region. He explained that the NDC is trying to table a law that would govern any other prospective oil find in Ghana and as such, it should not only be restricted to the Western Region alone. "We are making the [oil] law for the land...the law for the land is not for the Western Region, it’s for Ghana”, Mr. Abayateye said.