Aryeh explains NDC's political philosophy

Dr Josiah Aryeh, General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), on Monday said the party was embarking on a social democratic agenda because it wanted to work within an African contest for equality and egalitarianism. He said: " Africa's political experience is quite a unique cartography of world politics and in the distribution of political, military, and economic power, the African find himself short changed."

Dr Aryeh was explaining the NDC's political philosophy, which according to him was directed towards a social democratic agenda at a day's seminar for leading party members including its organisers and members of parliament.

He said party's work had become more urgent due to the end of stability created by the "bipolar distribution of power between the USSR and US, global environmental deterioration and the collapse of Africa's place in the world trade.

The General Secretary declared "As we stand on the threshold of the 21st century, African social democrats must work to remould the old hierarchies and economic and political asymmetries that define our world and consign us into a continent of poverty." We need to look fresh at the economic hierarchy that divide the rich and the poor and consigns the latter into a hopeless corner."

Dr Aryeh noted that there was the need to review the political hierarchy that confined power in the rulers and separated them from the people and the resistance of the rulers to political accommodation between regions and social classes.

Dr. Aryeh said: "We must address the resource hierarchy as much as possible to ensure an equitable distribution of wealth in a world in which geo-economics is rapidly replacing geo-politics." He said events within the political arena were demonstrating far more than the professed two traditions of which elitism was one of storm and fury and the other working for prosperity and the upliftment of the disadvantaged.

Dr Aryeh said NDC was committed to the transformation of the society in which sufficient and efficient frameworks would be created for the advancement and enlightenment of the citizens. The NDC outdoored a document title, "Social Democratic Agenda for Ghana - the philosophy of the National Democratic Congress" which restated the party's commitment to ensuring free tuition at the public tertiary level of education.

It stated that the party recognised its Constitutional obligation under Article 38(3) of the 1992 Constitution, to provide equal access to university or other form of education, with emphasis on science and technology subject to the availability of resources.

The constitution supports the loan scheme system that is easily accessed by all qualified students and scholarship and bursary schemes for brilliant but needy students as well those pursuing courses of strategic importance to the country.

The party's commitment to non-formal education, adult education and life-long learning must find expression in new programmes designed to ensure that all Ghanaians become literate to an appreciable degree. According to him the Ghana Educational Trust Fund, instituted by the NDC government whilst in power, must be appropriately utilized in pursuit of these educational objectives.