Ghana needs pervasive, shared leadership to develop - NDP

“Ghana needs a shared and pervasive leadership to develop and not a promise of goodies or provision of what politicians think the people need,” says Alhaji Mohammed Frimpong, the General Secretary of the National Democratic Party (NDP).

He explained that with a shared leadership, strengthening and extension of decentralisation, there would be a significant development and a great decline in societal ills such as corruption, poor attitudes towards the environment among others.

Alhaji Frimpong, who said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the NDP when given the mandate to lead and serve the country in the December 7 General Election, would empower leaders from communities to all public service institutions to direct their affairs.

The NDP, even though believed in the provision of infrastructure and implantation of some functional policies for the building of a country, he said, a strong leadership and the provision of platforms for every individual to participate in the governance structure was the most important.

“The NDP believes in shared leadership and we want to see participatory governance where the community would be the focus of local governance,” he said.

Alhaji Frimpong explained that the leaders in every community and institution would put the needs of their people before policymakers for consideration and also help to maintain law and order among the people to instil discipline in the citizenry.

The NDP-led government, he said, would empower community leadership through its “Community of Bureaus” system, to set up a complaints redress system for the people.

In the area of sanitation, the General Secretary said the Community of Bureaus would help to enforce laws to deter people from indiscriminately littering the environment.

Speaking about how the Party intended to significantly reduce corruption, Alhaji Frimpong said: “We would first focus on the prevention of corruption and then put mechanisms in place to detect them and the laws would rightfully take its place. When the watchman sees that he is also being watched, that is enough.”

The Party would set up an entrepreneurial incubation centre to equip the youth including graduates with skills and funds to set up businesses in their communities to reduce the rate of graduate unemployment.

“We will get to a point where there will be zero unemployment for the willing labour that is ready to work. Everybody will have something to do. The NDP has come for you to make sure that your wellbeing is the most important demand of the entire nation. We are putting every individual at a point of relevance in governance,” he said.

Alhaji Frimpong said although COVID-19 had brought a big challenge to the Party this election year coupled with the need for restrictions on the social gathering, the Party was using the traditional and social media platforms as well as community engagement methods to reach out to the electorate ahead of the election.

The National Democratic Party was established in 2012 by Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, a former first lady of Ghana and the wife of former President Jerry John Rawlings, Founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The NDP broke out of the NDC, with focus on promoting national growth through shared leadership and service.

Its Executive Structure includes a General Secretary, Women’s Leader, Organizer, Youth Leader, and Communication Directors.

The Party’s symbol is a ‘flying Dove’ holding on to ‘Gye Nyame’ symbol indicating that the Party believes in peace.

Its colours are red, green, white and black representing the toil of the nation’s forefathers with their blood, the vegetation of the land, the honesty of the Party and the African Continent and its people.