Low interest rate means nothing to the ordinary man -Mills

Koforidua, Sept 14, GNA - Former Vice President John Evans Atta Mills has said low interest rates did not mean much to people who could not pay school fees for their children while businesses were recording low turn-over.

He said the government was running economic policies that made some few people rich and left many of the citizens poor because "the expectation that the money will trickle down to the poor has failed." Prof Mills said this when he interacted with the media at Koforidua on Wednesday on the first day of his tour of the Eastern Region to meet National Democratic Congress (NDC) delegates to the December national congress of the party.

He is campaigning to be elected as the party's presidential candidate for Election 2008.

Prof Mills, who lost to elections to President John Agyekum Kufuor, said "when people are complaining, then it means things are not going the way they should and it takes a President with humility to accept that the government business is not going right." He said the country was polarized and every issue was politicised to the extent that even events that were threatening the very foundation of the society and the country were being handled on political lines.

"The cocaine issue is not a political problem. We need to sit up and find appropriate solutions to deal with it. Where are the opinion leaders of the country, where are the civil society organizations? "This is the time for them to speak out and help deal with a real national problem," Prof Mills said.

The Spokesperson for the Professor Mills campaign, Mr Mahama Ayariga, Member of Parliament for Bawku Central, said of all the party's candidates who had expressed interest in becoming the flag bearer for the 2008 elections, the NDC had "a strategic advantage" in putting forward Prof Mills as its candidate because it had invested in marketing him than the rest.

"The 2008 elections is the time for the party to take advantage of the investment that it had made in Prof Mills," he said. 14 Sept 06