Papa Kwesi Nduom's pledge to “keep the lights on” in Ghana has won over sceptics who were initially hostile towards his plan to unify all the Nkrumaists factions under one umbrella.
Addressing mammoth rally in the Central region to kick off his presidential campaign, Nduom said, “We have the moral duty to keep our promises to the people of Ghana by ensuring that we provide the people with decent education, housing, highest-quality health care and create more jobs”.
Nduom's rally was seen as “home coming” by his teeming supporters in the Central and Western Regions. In his address to the party faithful in Cape Coast and Sekondi, Papa Kwesi Nduom outlined key points for CPP's first 7 year national development plan.
Papa Kwesi Nduom said CPP is the only party that has the vision of turning Ghana into a middle income country by 2015. Papa Kwesi Nduom said under his presidency, CPP will enhance capacity for knowledge and innovation to address the huge social-economic inequalities by improving the educational standards at all levels and enable every Ghanaian have access to nothing but good quality education.
Papa Kwesi Nduom said to bridge the social-economic gap, his government would increase funding into poverty reduction strategies, reduce disparities among people in terms of income and job opportunities and narrow regional development gap.
Nduom said under the development plan, his government would encourage partnership between the public and private sector to upgrade public transportation, especially the railroad sector would see huge investment, including rehabilitation of the western rail corridor and extension of the railroad from the south to the north. 1 On the energy crisis, Nduom said his government will improve efficiency of energy supply to ensure every household in the land is connected 2 Papa Kwesi Nduom explained that under the 7 year development plan more affordable houses for the people would be provided in both urban and rural areas.
He promise the people of the 2 regions that under the development plan, development of the rural areas would be paramount so that they would not be marginalised. Papa Kwesi Nduom said under the rural development strategy key areas such as land ownership, new village layout, provision of amenities (schools and health centres, water and solar energy), agricultural produce centres, ICT – to upgrade village leaders as they are expose to globalisation, plus the technologies to improve their skills in commercial agro- industry. He placed emphasis on the growth of the financial and commercial sectors and economic growth from capital to the regions and villages.
Papa Kwesi Nduom said Ghana's heavy dependence on few exports of primary products as the source of foreign exchange earnings has been a source of concern for years and said under his presidency, the government will pursue a policy economic diversification through industrial development and increased agricultural production. He said the first 4 years of the plan will be to increase the standard of living of Ghanaians, improve physical infrastructure, increase irrigation schemes and create more jobs in both the agricultural sector and industry. Nduom said under his presidency Ghana will become self-sufficient in rice by reviving the rice growing farmlands in the 3 northern regions. He said the development of small-scale industry, especially in the rural areas and the 3 northern regions will be at the top of his development agenda. To this end, Nduom stated that his government will commit itself to the primacy of private enterprise and to a policy of fostering and assisting it. Papa Kwesi Nduom did not ruled out the involvement of the private sector in the provision of road transportation.
Papa Kwesi Nduom's “Home Coming” turned into Jubilation as he promised to keep the lights on and turn Ghana into an Industrial giant in Africa.
