CPP urges opposition to offer alternative policy direction

Accra, Jan. 10, GNA - The Convention People's Party (CPP) on Monda= y tasked African opposition political parties to offer alternative policy directions to governments on national issues instead of 93unnecessary politicking". "Governments should be challenged based on facts for the development= of the country, to improve the lot of the people and not through political manoeuvring to dent the image of the ruling party for electoral gains," Professor Ageyman Badu Akosa, a leading member of the party, told the Ghana News Agency in Accra.

Speaking on a wide range of issues for 2011, which the government has declared an 93Action Year", Prof. Akosa said: 93I expect the opposition political parties to be more focused, stop politicisation of almost everything in the country." "Politicking must end after elections for real government business..= ..no country has ever developed with over politicisation of national issues; we must have a national agenda which we must pursue. Our politicking seems tha= t most parties have no agenda after elections and (they) just want to destroy the government." On the media, Prof. Akosa, a former presidential candidate of the CPP, said: 932011 must be used for more development oriented quality discussion instead of the 24/7 unnecessary political debate on the airwaves." He reminded Ghanaian journalists that almost everybody in the country could identify with one problem or the other, but what we were looking for were the solutions. "The daily discussion of problems will not help us; we must begin to discuss alternatives and provide solutions to the numerous problems facing ordinary Ghanaians."

Prof. Akosa also tasked the presidency to decentralize governance. 93= In your action year take the presidency to the people. Move the seat of governance to the regions on a monthly basis. In January the President can for instance move to Upper East and spend at least a week in conducting all government business from there." "Such a development will give true meaning to democracy, re-direct infrastructural development, draw the world's attention to the regional potential and strengthen grassroots participation in governance." Prof. Akosa explained that as a nation state, it did not appear as if the welfare of the citizenry mattered very much to the leadership of the tw= o leading political parties, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC), and the civil and public service. "What have all our Governments done in the last 41 years after Dr Kw= ame Nkrumah's overthrow...? "We have been led badly but, more so, by those who were paid $13 million in 1966 by the Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow the properl= y elected government of Ghana," Prof. Akosa said. Prof. Akosa said the attitude of both NDC and NPP leadership to governance showed that Ghanaian political leaders had not come to grasp wit= h the import of the preamble to the 1992 Constitution.

The preamble states: 93In the name of the Almighty God, we the people= of Ghana in exercise of our natural and inalienable right to establish a framework of government which shall secure for ourselves and posterity the blessing of liberty, equality of opportunity and prosperity; in a spirit of friendship and peace with all peoples of the world: and in solemn declaration and affirmation of our commitment to; Freedom, Justice, probity and accountability; The principle that all powers of Government spring from the sovereign Will of the people; The Principle of Universal Adult Suffrage= ; The Rule of Law; The protection and preservation of fundamental Human Right= s and Freedoms, Unity and Stability for our Nation Do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves this constitution." He said 93we are certainly not working to achieve it" and therefore tasked the Mills Administration to translate the Action Year into reality not just political rhetoric.