AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY WITH H.E. ALAN KYEREMATEN

Ghana?s Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Alan Kyerematen has said the time has far passed for Africa to rescue itself from its many troubles and stop blaming colonialism and its agents.

Ambassador Kyerematen who was selected by the International Broadcasting Bureau in Washington DC, for an interview to celebrate African Liberation Day, which falls on May 25, said this on WorldNet?s Africa Journal TV Program.

?Colonialism,? Ambassador Kyerematen said, did happen and Africans cannot forget as well as the effects the Cold War had on them as an emerging post-colonial State and also the military interventions and counter-coups but, ?it is time, he said, to focus on current problems.?

Over 300 billion dollars of aid money given to African countries for development purposes by multinational and bilateral institutions are secretly being kept in European Banks for some leaders and their surrogates while colonialism still gets blame forty years after most Africa countries became independent.

Ambassador Kyerematen argued that in the new spirit that may be created from the New Partnership for Africa?s Development (NEPAD), Africa would have no choice but to consolidate and unite with a strong political will to achieve the aims of NEPAD which he thinks should see the relatively developing African countries assisting the less developed.

NEPAD, which he said is still at its consolidating stage should have come earlier since a Continent that has a debt in excess of 500 billion dollars and uses over 40 percent of its foreign revenue earnings to service its debt is one in real problem.

Kyerematen also made it known that Africa would need to acquaint itself of the Asian experience in terms of market accessibility as one of the important ways of development.

He disagreed with a query from a South African Broadcasting journalist that Ghana?s stature in Pan-African issues has waned under President J.A. Kufuor. His defense was, for a government that has been in power for a year and a half, and came to meet very serious domestic issues for which it had to give priority attention, the Pan-African record is good.

While the problems were rapidly being overcome, the President, he made known, had been involved in all the issues and that, one did not need to be in the limelight only to be seen as showing concern.

The program, which was broadcast live to 22 African countries, had as a satellite guest Gamely Nkrumah, Foreign Editor of Al-Ahram Weekly and son of the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

Gamely Nkrumah said Africa?s development should be based on unity and must involve all the talents of Africans in Africa and those in the US and other countries. All black people, he said, have their origins in Africa. His father, he praised, built schools and clinics all over Ghana and extended electricity to even neighboring countries.