CPP pledges to help improve living standards

Accra (Greater Accra) -- The Convention Peoples Party (CPP) on Wednesday said it would capture political power through democratic means to improve the living standards of Ghanaians.

Dr Abubakar Alhassan, National Chairman, told a meeting of the Greater Accra Regional Executive Council of the party, a statement issued by Mr Kwesi Pratt Junior, Chairman of the Party's Publicity Committee on Wednesday said.

Dr Alhassan said the party's ideological direction would not be determined by the convenience of distressed political parties, adding; "we were socialist from the beginning and we are still socialist and nobody can take that away from us".

He said the rise of social democratic parties in Europe was an indication that more and more people were accepting that the state could not abandon its responsibility of promoting the welfare of the people to the private sector.

The National Chairman said no honest and informed person could deny the fact that development in the industrialised world was only possible through strong state interventions in their economies. He said the achievement of socialist and social democratic parties across the world belied the claim that only the unfettered free market system could bring about development.

He said Cuba had managed to develop the best health delivery system in the world within 40 years and the standard of living in the Scandinavian countries was very high. "The irony of our situation is that the ideology of the free marketers in the third world is that they try too hard to be more Catholic than the Pope. Whiles every country in Europe and North America is subsidising its agriculture, we have accepted the 'doctrinaire' position that subsides for agriculture is evil", Dr Alhassan said.

He warned that if Ghana refused to subsidise agriculture, the nation would lose its comparative advantage and become totally dependent on the importation of food and other needs. "The dependence on imported items would create a situation in which what donors brought through the front door would go back to them through the back door," the CPP national chairman noted.

Dr Alhassan said: "We should know that whenever we import food we help other countries to improve their economy to solve their employment problems and to strengthen their currencies."

Dr Nii Noi Dowuona, General Secretary of party said the leadership of the party had embarked on tour of the country after which the National Executive Council would be called it session. He said the re-organisation of party was meant to ensure that it was owned and run by the people of Ghana and not a few rich people and fully committed to the mobilisation of the masses against poverty and underdevelopment.