Ghana Must Move Forward Again!

In three days the great elephant family goes to the poll to elect the party’s parliamentary candidates for the 2012 general elections. It is scheduled to take place simultaneously in 220 constituencies across the country. The Zebila, Talensi, Abuakwa North, Sisala East, Sisala West, Sege, Nkawkaw, Bosome Freho, Obom-Domeabra and Bekwai constituencies are the ten that have been postponed, for strategic reasons in the best interest of the party. Last Wednesday I commended the leadership and entire membership of the party for conducting a healthy campaign. My comments remain valid with just three days to go. Since the defeat of 2008, the NPP has been going through a number of remarkable transformations. First was the setting up of the Dr. Heyman Committee to review the 2008 campaign and elections. They did so and made their recommendations to the party.

Then in August 2009, the party went to the Trade Fair site to amend portions of its constitution, notable amongst them was the expansion of the electoral college of the party to give a voice to the grassroots in decision making and change the way the party’s leaders are elected. Ahead of that exercise, the NDC said the NPP was on the verge of disintegrating because it was an exercise too ambitious. They called it insane. But true to its democratic tenets, the NPP went through it and peacefully amended portions of its constitution. The party then went ahead to elect polling station executives, electoral area coordinators, constituency executives, regional executives and then national executives. For the national executive elections, 4000 delegates voted, compared to the previous 1500. That day, at the Baba Yara sports stadium, the spectacle was beautiful. The NPP moved another step forward.

And so it was that the newly elected chairman, Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey and his team will begin their first task of conducting the primaries for the presidential candidate. On August 7, after 107,116 people voted peacefully to elect Nana Addo as the party’s Presidential Candidate for the 2012 elections, the world applauded the NPP. In his victory speech, Nana Addo described it as a “kra be whe election.” That one too was successful and the party moved further closer to victory 2012.

It seems to me that the upcoming parliamentary primaries is the last major task left to accomplish, as the party prepares to move into the 2012 campaign, ready and steady for victory. I said last week and repeat, that, the elections will be peaceful and successful. I also called on the party to continue to conduct ourselves in a winsome manner because the eyes of the Ghanaian people are on us. They are looking up to us in the NPP for the restoration of national hope and growth. They are looking up to us to come back in 2013 to build on the solid foundation that the President Kufuor administration left behind. In those 8 years, the NPP gave Ghana its best economy in our half-a-century of independence. We achieved macro-economic stability for the longest period in our history. We reduced significantly both interest rates and inflation while quadrupling the size of our economy to US$16 billion in the first seven years of the NPP. We worked hard to wean ourselves off the financial dependence of the World Bank and the IMF. Regrettably, the NDC has returned us into dependence on the World Bank and the IMF.

On the economy, good governance, public sector reforms, law and order, decentralisation, education, health, agriculture, industry, information and communications technology, foreign affairs, tourism, youth and sports, housing, energy, roads, transport, water supply and sanitation, the NPP has a record to show. The myriad of achievements between 2001 and 2008, attest to the solid foundation laid by the party in the first two terms. We demonstrated clearly, that we are the party with the best ideas and sound policies that can move our country forward.

And then sadly, enters the NDC, in 2009 and ever since, Ghana’s development and growth has been on the reverse gear. President Mills, a man who promised to be father for all, has since assumption of office, moved further away from majority of Ghanaians. He has lost touch with the realities on the ground.

He promised to reduce fuel prices drastically but ended up increasing it drastically. He increased road tolls by 1000%. Since 2009, Ghana has returned to the days of regular shortages of petroleum products. For a long time, under the Kufuor era, no cues were seen at our fuel and gas stations. Mills promised a reduction in utility tariffs, if elected President. As President, his administration has supervised drastic increases in both water and electricity tariffs. In his state of the nation address earlier this year, he told all of us that his administration has solved the perennial water problem in Adenta. It took less than 12 hours for the residents to come out to say the President was either being economical with the truth or he was perhaps misinformed.

Freezing employment in the public sector was one of the first steps that the Mills administration took soon after assumption of office, and yet one of their main campaign themes was “investing in jobs and youth.” Today, graduates from our tertiary institutions only come out to meet and face the frustrations of a society created by a frustrated administration.

On corruption, the story is so bad that now members of the NDC are trading accusations amongst themselves, not on who is corrupt but who is more corrupt. First among equals I call it. A leading member of the NDC says if she becomes president she will probe thoroughly, the Mills administration, her own party’s administration. Incredible!

The sense of insecurity that exists in Ghana today is worrying. Not a day goes by without one or more reported armed robbery cases. People live in fear. Fear of being robbed if not rapped or both on a bus or in their homes. And yet, Mills promised to bring an end to crime in our country, so that Ghanaians will no longer live in fear.

The Mills administration has showed clearly, with close to three years in office that the basic and fundamental needs of the people are the things that do not matter to them. All they care about is the propaganda; using the media to lie to the people about their own lives. But to what extent? How much propaganda can you do to win the sympathies and votes of a disgruntled teacher or unsatisfied nurse? Even if I believe your lies, what about the teacher, or the nurse? Don’t they know what you are doing to them? Won’t they compare it with what used to happen under Kufuor?

In 2013, by the Grace of God, the NPP will get Ghana moving forward again. Akufo-Addo says: “We will not be able to defeat mass poverty and widespread unemployment if we continue to operate an economy that is dependent on the production and export of raw materials. It is not an accident that the wealthiest nations in the world are the industrialised ones. Ghana’s economy has to be transformed into an industrial one. For myself, I see Ghana as a manufacturing base for industrial and agricultural products for the ECOWAS market of some 300 million persons. That is the strategic objective for which I shall be working. That is the road to real prosperity for the majority of our people.” The NPP is committed to building a new society of opportunities, where every Ghanaian has the opportunity to better him or herself, and by so doing better the Ghanaian society. That is why the people vote for you and that should be your focus and not keep yourself busy blaming past administrations for your incompetence, when your mentor is also calling you mediocre.

When the NPP got the opportunity, we demonstrated in eight years, that we are the party that cares about the people’s welfare and all the social interventions that we introduced; the school feeding programme, capitation grant, National Health Insurance Scheme, LEAP, etc confirm that. We have the opportunity to come back, get rid of the despondency and hopelessness that we face today and take up the responsibility to get Ghana moving forward again.

We cannot let the opportunity slip by. The Ghanaian people won’t forgive us. Ghana must move forward again, but we need to win the power first, and fellow party people, it takes hard and smart work.

I wish all aspirants the best of luck in Saturday’s elections, trusting that in the end it is the NPP that will emerge the ultimate winner. hkrapa@gmail.com