Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
All supporters and sympathisers of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in and outside Ghana have been urged by flagbearer Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo to work hard to remove the John Mahama-led government from power in the November 7 polls.
According to Mr Akufo-Addo, Ghana, under President Mahama, is suffering from the effects of mismanagement. He recounted how Ghana’s GDP growth rate slumped to 3.9 per cent in 2015, less than half of the 8.4 per cent President Kufuor achieved at the time of leaving office, a feat he achieved without the benefit of oil revenue.
Addressing a packed town hall meeting in Modena, Italy on Saturday as part of his visit to that country, he decried the fact that government propagandists were quick to cite “external shocks” as the reasons for Ghana’s economic slump.
According to Nana Akufo-Addo, “Cote d’Ivoire is experiencing the same external shocks as Ghana, and, yet, it is experiencing a boom, evidenced in it being the number one investment destination on the African continent, a 9 per cent annual GDP growth rate, and $12billion in agricultural export revenues. Ghana, on the other hand, is in decline and could only garner $2 billion from her agricultural exports.”
Consequently, the NPP flagbearer urged NPP members, in and outside Ghana, to work hard to lift country out of the existing situation, and bring her back to prosperity.
“We have to change these statistics. We cannot continue, whilst other people are prospering, to go down the hill. We need to have a change in Ghana. John Mahama cannot help us,” he said.
He said a Nana Akufo-Addo government from 2017 would focus on expanding industry and modernising Ghana’s agriculture, adding that: “These are going to be the main themes for the next four years.”
This twin-track of rapid industrial expansion and increase of agricultural productivity, he indicated, is what will generate the hundreds of thousands of jobs that the teeming masses of unemployed Ghanaian youth need.
