Hon Chief Justice
Your Excellencies Invited Heads of States and Vice President
Rt Hon Speaker
Fellow Presidential Candidates
Hon MPs Fellow Citizens:
I thank God for taking us through another challenging electioneering period, and today I am happy to accept the leadership challenges ahead of us. In doing so I wish to express my profound gratitude to every Ghanaian for the part played in making today a memorable one. I also thank my predecessors for the leadership they have provided up till today.
As we celebrate the day, it is my hope that we as a society will quickly appreciate the problems we have caused our society, align ourselves with the challenges arising, and rekindle our efforts in finding answers for them.
It saddens me about the way we have allowed attitude of ‘blame game’ destroyed our social fibre. In Ghana today nobody seems to be responsible for anything. We seem to blame one another for why something has not been done or has gone wrong. Today, as we pledge to move forward, we need to kill such blame game attitude, brave ourselves with the need to be socially responsible, and be ready to stand up for ethics of social responsibilities.
Hon Chief Justice, 50 years ago our ancestors stood up to free us from colonization. That freedom was not limited to self government but it was the navigational point of our development and dignity. Yet after all these years what we aspired for through our forefathers and mothers seems to be in tatters.
Not long ago when majority of our teachers were middle school leavers, we were able to produce school pupils who were able to read, write and communicate effectively. In those times we had exceptional students to fill our proud tertiary institutions, and after graduation they were highly skillful in their endeavours. Many of such people are in leadership positions now including myself. It is sad that such a positive development has been destroyed less than 30 years into our independence. The foundation some people laid for us, we have allowed self pettiness to destroy it.
Fellow citizens, I remember having a mate in university who had to walk 8km a day to get education under a tree. He was a top notch student. Today he is one of Mother Ghana’s only three nuclear medicines experts. I believe that generation had a disciplined, dedicated character to fight and overcome the rigorous of our society then.
Indiscipline, selfishness, irresponsible social behaviour, and pettiness have made it impossible to add just one more nuclear medicine expert to the three we have (who are in their effective retirement age).
Countrymen and women, the polarization of our politics is effectively drawing us into the corridor of perpetual poverty. Politics were made for us not us for politics. It is time we realized the pain we have caused our country as a result of our political intolerance, naivety, and ignorance. What has gone wrong that we could not use our political diversity to spearhead our development process the same manner it was used to set us free from colonization?
Certainly we cannot avoid discussing issues from party politics point of view. But the bottom-line of such discussion should be how best we could provide quality education to millions of our children of school going age dotted around our unplanned cities selling ice water and some doing kayayo, eradicate our society from curable diseases, solve our sanitation problems, support our businesses to grow and create wealth, and bridge the gap between the haves and the haves not.
Hon Chief Justice, only this morning there was a news item of a 10-year old girl being killed by a car around a radio station. The girl was selling ice water under a shed. I learnt just at the time of the accident the radio station was discussing a political issue which to me was very flimsy. I believe the presenter and those billed for the discussion saw the girl while going to the studio. Nothing clicked any of them to discuss why such a girl should be selling ice water as early as 7:40 am when she was supposed to be in the classroom. This shows how we have misprioritized our agenda setting needs. It is regrettable the way party politics is made to assume ‘leadership role’ as if without it we have nothing concrete to talk about.
Much as we regret such unfortunate loss, it is my deepest wish that our media will use their agenda setting function effectively and lead the discussion in the crusade of “what matters most” in our search for sustainable development. I hope the media will focus on building a much stronger civil society powerful enough to legally and constitutionally ‘punish’ any political element or institution which fails to live up to the tenets of good governance, liberty, democracy and sustainable social and economic development.
We will offer an open government that embraces diversity, sharing, participation and continuous dialogue with all stakeholders. Channels of communication across our society will be broadened to tap every resource for our national development. However, this government will not waste time entangling herself with media issues that will distract our attention from our core business of improving the lives of every Ghanaian.
Fellow Ghanaian and Invited heads of states, as we participate in such colourful celebration, let us not forget ourselves of the daunting task of providing institutions and leadership that work towards the search for sustainable energy sources to support our industries. On this note I challenge our university research dons to come out with a pragmatic idea to fine tune our energy problems. Do not let your intellect and ideas go waste. Whatever it takes to bring your knowledge to the benefit of our society please it is your constitutional right to do so. I promise that who ever will put impediment in your way to deny mother Ghana of your acquired knowledge would be extremely dealt with.
Rt Hon Chief Justice and Fellow Counrtymen/women, I want to push this nation forward based on the vision of promoting a sustained self reliance in development. At the end of my duty I want to build a society where:
a) we live peacefully together in an atmosphere governed by democratic principles, respecting each one’s culture and ideology and political orientation; b) we can determine our own destinies and also have the freedom to explore and utilise our skills and talents for the benefit of our communities and ourselves without discrimination and favouritism c) the government, the civil society groups, the private and public sectors, and our international development partners co-exist harmoniously to create and build a stronger partnership network effective enough in our fight against poverty, injustice and ignorance.
I wish to state that this government will provide leadership that train and support citizens to be resourceful, independent and be able to generate wealth themselves. In this way they can support state development programmes in the form of taxes and generous contributions. This leadership strategy will be achieved in four clear policy directions including:
a) developing a vibrant, educated civil society including strengthening of our political and electoral systems as well as providing institutional support development;
b) overhauling our tax systems with the view to tapping resources from other sources currently lying fallow;
c) streamlining our human development strategies through the modernisation of our educational system tailored to suit our business needs; and
d) providing support for locally based projects which focus on youth development and employment, environmental sustainability, health and sanitation and gender development issues. My Countrymen/women, throughout my life one thing I have understood very well is that vision and commitment of a leader alone does not often work, unless they are put into cohesive action with other policies in a supportive framework. Besides that, our inability to be very decisive on our policies especially at the highest political level constitutes a major impediment in our efforts towards poverty reduction. Hence I am directing each ministry’s chief director to send within two weeks a coherent strategic plan of his/her ministry on how the policies will be carried out at the ministerial levels based on the objectives of each ministry. This will also help us to streamline functions and operations into a much coherent manner with the view to reducing the size of government functionaries without jeopardising efficiency and performance.
It is disheartening to read about the way many of our citizens abroad are subjected to all kinds of abuses at the watchful eyes of our missions abroad while we offer the best of courtesies and hospitalities to citizen of our foreign counterparts. One wonders at times whether there is any need resourcing our missions. This must stop! Our mission staffs should note that they are there to protect Ghana and her citizens at every possible situation. As such any mission that fails to achieve this objective will be dealt with according to the laws of the country.
I hope to deepen the cooperation and friendship with our foreign partners in our new drive towards development. But our search for foreign support should NOT be used as a basis to marginalise and push us into accepting decisions that are not in our favour.
Fellow citizens, this new journey has begun now. It is a journey where we will continue from the good works of our past, look into our shortfalls and remedy them and take on new initiatives that will effectively propel our country forward. This calls for new attitudes, new mentalities, new way of doing things and above being obedient and respectful to God and humanity.
We can do it and I am happy that we have all determined to do something for mother Ghana, our society, our posterity and the world at large.
God Bless us all. Thank you.
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