Bagbin speaks on 2004 elections

Ho (Volta Region) -Hon. Alban Bagbin, Minority Leader in Parliament on Saturday asserted that the National Democratic Congress's (NDC's) battle against the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2004 elections would be fought and won by the NDC in the "arena of facts".

This is because the NPP government has so far shown its inability and lack of courage to disprove the facts the NDC continued to marshal against it. Bagbin made these points when he addressed the Volta Region Chapter of the Tertiary Educational Institutions Network (TEIN) of the NDC at Ho.

He, therefore, urged the youth and young intellectuals of the party to go to the people, especially their peers, armed with facts and critical analyses to buttress their apprehensions about the future direction of the government".

Bagbin said Ghana needed a new and dynamic political direction propelled by a new generation of honest and knowledgeable leaders to lift the spectre of despondence overshadowing the country's future.

The Minority Leader gave the assurance that he would not condone corruption and would expose that tendency even within the NDC because it undermines the party's credibility and national interest.

Bagbin said for now, politics in the country is thriving on "form rather than substance, "thereby alienating the cream of society from being actively involved politically to the detriment of the citizenry."

He said politics required the participation of honest energetic and knowledgeable people committed to social justice and service in humility to make a nation great. Bagbin said these were the qualities the country badly needed in its leaders if the country was to progress.

The Minority Leader alleged that, the primary concern of the government is to ensure the material comfort of its members while calling on the citizenry to sacrifice for lack of money.

He said the award of contracts worth billions of cedis for the unwarranted renovations of government bungalows and offices of the top hierarchy of the government and the luxurious lifestyles noticeable with them are contrary to the "no money refrain".

He said the maturity of the NDC was being misconstrued by the government as weakness and it was time the NDC proved without jeopardising national peace and stability that it is not a weakling.

Haruna Iddrisu, National Youth Leader of the Party said a new and dynamic leadership is emerging in the NDC, which recognises the immensurable potential of the youth to ensure victory for the party in future elections.

He observed that the election victory of the NPP in the 2000 elections was due largely to the dedication, and resilience of its youth, which had provided a useful lesson to the NDC leadership.

"Having gone through what we went through and seeing how things are now going, we will do better", Iddrisu said. He said the NPP government was setting a dangerous precedent by putting some NDC Ministers and officials before the courts for "causing financial loss to the state in the discharge of their duties".

Iddrisu said the same treatment would be visited on them not as retribution but as a matter of cause because many of their actions have gone contrary to that law. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, Member of Parliament for Wenchi-West, and a former Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) painted a dismal performance of the agriculture sector.

He alleged that many initiatives taken by the NDC government to bolster, the fisheries, poultry, crop and cocoa sectors had been bungled by the government and fraught with cronyism.

Asiedu-Nketia repeated his challenge to the Minister and Deputy Ministers of MOFA for face-to-face debates with him on the performance of the sector. None of them had the courage so far to meet me but continued to give excuses to evade me", he said. Adzamli Mensah, President of the Ho-Polytechnic Branch of TEIN said the NDC was working diligently, strategising and refuelling for the 2004 elections campaign.