There will be a First Lady by the time I become President

Dr. Kwesi Botchwey says by the time he becomes President of Ghana, after the 2004 elections, there would be a First Lady. However, he added that he would not, just because of his quest for the Presidency, plunge headlong into any marriage. Yet there is somebody in his life and at the right time it will become public knowledge.

Dr. Botchwey said: "At any rate I do not believe that the matter of my matrimonial status is the matter of the moment and the greatest and the most decisive test of my qualification and competence to run the country as President. But for those who believe that it is, I can give them some comfort. There will be a first lady."

Dr. Botchwey, who was in Tamale to pitch his campaign for the Northern Region, was reacting to comments about his single marital status and his bid to become the President of Ghana. He is seeking the mandate of the NDC to become its Presidential candidate in the 2004 elections.

To those unaware of his marital background, he said: "First of all let me make it very clear, in case people don't know. I am a very responsible man.

I was married for almost twenty years, I have children, I have a grown-up daughter who has given me three grandchildren, I have a son who has given me one grand child, I have two other daughters and I was married for eighteen years.

"I got divorced after eighteen years, in part, as a result of the strains and the stresses of the job. So I don't want the impression created that I am some implacable and irresponsible bachelor just roaming the world; I am a family man."

He does not agree with those who say that since he could not retrieve Ghana from the economic doldrums before vacating his position as the Minister of Finance, he cannot make any difference as a President.

"Those who say so were obviously not in the country during the thirteen years I was in office. When I took over as Financial Minster, I recall, and those who were around if they are honest with themselves will admit that those were very rough times indeed, we stood in long queues to buy raw, uncooked kenkey. We stood in articulated trucks to travel long distances in the country.

"There was no electricity, we were suffering the fourth consecutive year of drought, and bushfires were raging all over the country and destroying large acreages of food and cash crops. At that same time a million Ghanaians who had gone seeking greener pastures in Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire were expelled. Everybody thought the country was finished.

"A country that was suffering a crisis of that magnitude suddenly suffered a 10 per cent increase in its population. All financial institutions, public and private had quarantined us; Nigeria had cut off our oil supply because we owed them something close to 600 million dollars in arrears.

Therefore it was a crisis. But by the time I was leaving office the country was not in that situation. The economy had resumed growth - from no growth to negative growth, then to real growth."

Dr, Botchwey said when the economic recovery programme started in 1982, the world did not care about poverty alleviation, about Ghana's real interest and the national ownership of policy reform agenda in the country.

"Today the international community has actually adopted a set of millennium development goals. The international community has adopted poverty alleviation as the greatest challenge facing the world. They have now agreed that the programmes of policy reform that focus simply on macro- economic civilisation were inadequate. They have come to accept that the ownership of national programmes is the key to national development."

He said for the six years that he had been away he had the opportunity to reflect on his experiences in Government and to learn a lot more about the complexity of the development problems that face low income countries.

He has come to understand "better, the greater opportunities and space for creative alternative development thinking that the current International conjunction provides."

Dr. Botchwey said the NDC needs a breath of fresh air, a new vision, some rejuvenation so that its members can hold their heads high again and chart a new course for the country.

He believes he is the one best suited for the Presidential candidature of the NDC because the hardships Ghana is facing require one who knows its economic situation inside out; "somebody who has contacts in the whole world, who can pick up the phone and call the president of the biggest bank in the world and tell him to come and help us. That is me."

Extolling his credentials, Botchwey said: " Just some few weeks ago I went to South Africa to give a lecture to all the Finance Ministers in Africa on how to manage the African economies. If I did not know how to do this, would they have invited me?

So I asked myself how can I go advising other African countries on how to run their economies when my own country, my own party needs me? So I decided, tired or not tired, I would come back to lead the party to victory in 2004."

He said if he wanted to help himself, he would have stayed in the United States, where he was working in one of the world's best universities and was being paid in dollars. He could have relaxed to enjoy his money. But he wants the NDC to come back to power.

He wants a new NDC that is strong, where the structures are strong. Not an NDC where leaders sit in Accra and dictate to constituencies. "We are going to fight to the end. I will lead you to victory in 2004.

The question NDC members should ask is who is the better candidate, the best person, who can beat the NPP in 2004? And I believe I am the one. It is inconceivable that I will not win the flagbearership. However if I should lose I will give Prof. Mills or whoever wins all the support I can."