... In Property Owning Democracy
The New Patriotic Party?s policy, in the words of J B Danquah, ?is to liberate the energies of the people for the growth of a property owning democracy in this land, with right to life, freedom, and justice as principles to which government and laws of the land should be dedicated in order specifically to enrich life, property, and liberty of each and every citizen.? The above quotation takes the first page of every manifesto of the NPP. In fact, it is the creed of the party. It defines what the Danquah-Busia group stands for. But, how true a conviction does the leadership and rank and file of the party hold in seeing manifest this creed?
Perhaps, a sign of this is in the fact that there is hardly a single member of the NPP who has memorised the words above.
We are limiting our focus to that aspect of the creed which refers to the right of every citizen to have the opportunity to persevere to own property. In our view growing, expanding, maintaining and enriching property owning democracy is so crucial to even maintaining the other goods, such as right to life, freedom and justice.
When citizens have a proprietary stake in society they are more committed to protecting the interest of that state. Ownership boosts security, peace and stability. When the majority of the people feel that they are not in the mainstream of society; when several of our citizens feel left out on the fringes of society, they are at best non-plus or non-committal to its well-being or worse still serve as readily raw material for the agents of destruction to exploit.
We believe it is within the might and philosophy of the ruling party to change the status quo where property ownership is limited to a few; where decent shelter is beyond the reach of the majority of ordinary Ghanaians.
The possibilities have been amply shown by the small but commendable attempts by government to put up affordable homes for working Ghanaians. Significantly, the price ranges of the state-sponsored homes have shown that houses are woefully over-priced in Ghana. We believe if government sees it as a major priority and find the necessary funds within the next two years to put up more of these affordable decent homes, it would bring down prices of houses to a more realistic level.
Is it really impossible for government to achieve this? We believe it is more possible than probably appreciated by the Kufuor administration. It is so possible that the electoral benefits are as self-serving as they are nation-serving. All it requires is the courage to think and act big. All it requires is a little out-of-the-box thinking and out-of-the-ordinary sourcing of funds.
