Born on Ghana’s Independence date, Kwabena believes the celebration of the country’s 50th Independence Anniversary would make a significant feat not only in the history books of Ghana, but in his life as he gears to become the country’s next president.
In an exclusive interview with The Chronicle over the weekend, Kwabena noted that an NPP government under his administration would represent a generational shift with the total welfare of Ghanaians a priority, saying, “I’m the bridge with the future.
This he said means that the country would witness a new breed of leadership, filled with zest, fresh ideas and energies running the state of affairs.
The new breed of leadership, he said would thus convert their ideas and energies into pragmatic and salient policies and programmes that would propel the nation forward without any further delay.
He described as ridiculous speculations making rounds in sections of the media that he only joined the race to win votes for Foreign Affairs Minister, Nana Akufo Addo.
Kwabena believes this is one of the mischievous propagandist strategies to sway delegates.
Recounting what he said was the significant feat chalked under the reigns of his former boss and incumbent President Kufuor, Kwabena noted that he is better placed to run the affairs of this country to at least give some vitality to the teeming youth, most of whom currently remain unemployed.
He therefore promises that Ghanaian workers under his administration would realize the reward and relevance for hard work, stressing that everybody’s sweat and toil would surely commensurate his earning, saying “there should be more action and less talk”.
“This is because, I want to restore the country to a culture of hard work,” he emphasized.
“In a country like Ghana, we should put ourselves under war-footing, working around the week, seven days in 24 hours and putting our people in productive work”, he said, promising to encourage indigenous Ghanaians and local businesses with the removal of long processing bureaucratic bottlenecks.
Though he does not despise expatriates working in Ghana, he noted that indigenous Ghanaians would be more of a priority than foreigners under his administration.
As the centerpiece of politics continuous and remains the welfare of the people, he mentioned that hard working Ghanaians would not wipe their tireless sweat in vain. Rather, he said they would be made to feel proud being Ghanaians.
He paid glowing tribute to the teeming foot soldiers of the party, whose dedicated services, toils and sweat have seen to the sustenance of the party and president Kufuor all these years.
The former Press Secretary, conceded that though some of these foot soldiers have had cause to complain about being abandoned by the party, his government would support them through the implementation of human-faced policies, which would equally reflect in their lives.
This, he said is the reason why there is an urgent need for the new generation of leaders to take over the reigns of the party, stressing, “politics is cyclical and generational”.
“I represent the new generation for our party,” he said, indicating that the time has come for the new generation of leaders to take over the reigns of the party, as there is no time to waste.
A new generation government under his leadership, he said, would present fresh ideas and pragmatic measures that would seek to change the country within a matter of time.
He noted that this would be seen in the tailor-measured policies that he would put in place towards the interest and benefit of the teeming Ghanaian youth who are unable to take care of their parents.
The former Press Secretary to the President said there is therefore an urgent need for Ghanaians to change their individual attitudes towards work, since without hard work nothing could change the fortunes of the country.
He thus emphasized that under his government, people placed in authority would be held accountable to their deeds and inefficiencies since that translates to affect the general effort towards the achievement of development.
He could for instance not fathom the situation where the country would continue to witness power outages as in recent times without Ghanaians being given advance notice (say, a month) for companies and individuals to plan ahead of schedule.
This, he said breeds irresponsibility on the part of certain individuals who are employed and dully paid with the tax payers money to deliver services hence he promises to adopt and employ the theory of being able to ‘hire and fire’ to keep people on their toes.
“Under my leadership, they don’t have a job for life, especially public servants and civil service. People would be sanctioned for lapses that occur in their areas of operations,” he said.
He believes this would always ensure that efficient services are rendered to Ghanaians in return for their investments and cold sweat.
The presidential hopeful thus assured that there would no room for such laxity in development and productivity.
“That is when all of us will be satisfied”, he said, asking rhetorically “if we become individualistic in our approach towards national development issues, how do we develop as a nation.”
Mr. Agyepong was of the strongest conviction that no nation has ever developed, except with the combined efforts of its people.
His youth agenda, The Chronicle gathered, appears to be catching up with the party’s teeming youth, most of who are delegates in the upcoming congress.
“Each and everyday they troop to my office and all things being equal, I’ll win and serve their interest.”
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