Politics of Thursday, 22 January 2015
Source: NPP UK Secretariat
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, the NPP 2016 Presidential Candidate, presented his
vision for transforming Ghana at an invitation to address a selected audience at
Chatham House, the esteemed Royal Institute of International Affairs in London,
this morning.
He spoke on the theme “Developing Ghana: Policies for Prosperity” before an
audience comprising business leaders, diplomats, foreign relations and
development experts, political and social commentators. His zeal, passion and
advocacy for a transformed and prosperous Ghana, was compelling.
After his spectacular off-the-cuff delivery of his vision, which he stressed has
been consistent because he truly believes in it as the only path way for Ghana’s
prosperity, the audience gave him a warm applause.
He concluded the 90-minute interaction by answering a question on what makes him
believe he can be third time lucky, he said instinctively, “My own sense is that
the Ghanaian people have come to trust me.”
Speaking on Wednesday morning, Nana Akufo Addo in his submission traced Ghana’s
development and democratic journey to date and acknowledged that the “values and
principles of democratic engagement continue to deepen in the country”
describing the next critical task to be on how the programmes, players and
institutions of the country can be synchronised to address the overarching issue
of “raising rapidly the quality of life of the mass of our people.”
He admitted that there were structural imbalances between Parliament and the
Presidency, stressing, “that the performance of the legislature has not been
spectacular.” And, he blamed that on the constitutional framework that “makes
the legislature second to the executive,” saying, that the imbalance has to be
addressed consensually and constitutionally.
He reiterated the need to strengthen the institutions that underpin our
democracy, especially our executive, legislature and judiciary, to ensure that
each plays their respective roles in building a strong democratic culture that
ensures accountability, effective separation of powers, and guaranteeing respect
for the rule of law.
He had kind words for the judiciary. “As a rule,” he said, “Ghana’s judiciary is
considered as one of the most independent in Africa. But, a lot more must be
done in terms of resources to strengthen its capacity and also the calibre of
the people there.”
Nana Akufo-Addo also used the occasion to again call for fundamental reforms of
the nation’s electoral system to restore public confidence. To him, if trust in
the system is to be restored then the problems with the voters’ register must be
addressed head on. This means replacing the current register, which he argued
was bloated and not a true reflection of the country’s population eligible to be
on the electoral roll.
For the NPP, he said, “Our interest is that we have elections in the future that
are incident-free. We are not the ones who are going to disturb the governance
of our country. On the contrary, our history has been one of leading in the
struggle to consolidate our democracy,” he said.
Nana Akufo-Addo said mobilisation of greater public participation in the
governance process must be facilitated. He welcomed greater civil society
engagement in the governance process but went further to show constitutional
policy measures that , he believed, could assist in the process of greater
participatory democracy, especially at the grassroots level.
The Presidential Candidate of the NPP took the opportunity to state his
commitment to a radical shift in the status quo of the local government
structure. He stressed the need to deepen participatory democracy at the local
level with a move from non-partisan elections at the local level to a fully
elected local government administration, including election of district chief
executives, who will be fully accountable to the people.
“In my view, political parties must be free to openly sponsor candidates for
District Assembly elections. Also, District Chief Executives, or Mayors, must be
directly elected.”
He argued that the situation where DCEs feel accountable to the president, the
appointing authority, rather than the people at the local level is a democratic
anomaly that must be addressed. He described that as a major check on the
quality of local governance.
He bemoaned the current level of corruption in Ghana, describing it as
widespread. “There is a strong stench of corruption in the country,” he said. “I
do not speak as an opposition politician, but as a citizen of the country.”
He prescribed two ways of dealing with corruption: the personal example of
leadership and the institutional capacity to deal with it. On the leadership
level, he told the audience, including representatives of multinationals that
for him any person in his party who wishes to make money would not be allowed to
serve in public office but would rather be encouraged to go in the private
sector where making money can be a legitimate objective.
“I have told people in my party – if you want to make money go to the private
sector.”
He said he has a personal commitment to the fight against corruption and has
demonstrated that as Attorney-General under President J A Kufuor. “It was not my
job to see to it that people were punished for corruption but to send cases to
court to for the judiciary to rule on them.”
He added, “Then, of course, is the institutional thing. Which in short means the
willingness and capacity to enforce the law. Enforcing the laws is not just
about prosecution, but, also about the laws that allow greater efficiency in the
management of public resources and for greater value for money.”
He said one law in point, which has been ignored under the “Mills-Mahama era” is
the Public Procurement Act. He said his government would reverse the current
culture “where sole sourcing of public procurement contracts is the norm rather
than the exception.”
He said the philosophy of his government would be to give Ghanaians value for
their money because if that is done the problems of basic infrastructure could
be quicker resolved and Ghana would not be in the situation where it is now
spending more money to pay off interests on its loans than it uses for
infrastructural development.
Nana Akufo-Addo said, for example, when the NPP left office in 2008, Ghana was
using 7% of its GDP to develop infrastructure. “The figure is now 5%. We were
expecting the oil and gas discovery to allow us to invest more money in
developing our infrastructure. But the reverse has been the case,” he lamented.
Nana Akufo-Addo said, “Ghana was poised for a major take off after 2008. Sadly,
the Mills-Mahama era has seen a drastic drawback.” He expressed the hope that
with the right leadership Ghana can once again become the Black Star of Africa.