4 Years not enough to change Economy

...“We will transform Ghana in 10 years”

The 2012 Presidential Candidate of Ghana’s largest opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo Addo has practically put the seal of endorsement on his political rival and sitting President, John Mills and justified why the Law Professor should be retained in the up-coming polls.

Nana Akufo Addo believes the lives of the mass of our people cannot be dramatically improved in so far as the Ghanaian economy, which prior to President Mills coming into power, still remained dependent on raw material production.

According to the NPP flagbearer “what Ghana therefore needs is a structural transformation of her economy. We cannot improve the lives of the mass of our people if we remain a raw material producing nation”.

He also, in subtle manner seemed to back the call by former President Kufuor for a five year tenure of office for the Presidency with an option of another term, when he told his audience of NPP researchers: “with the right programme in place, in the next ten years, Ghana can become a self-sustainable, confident economy in many ways, with an extensive, modern agricultural industry that will feed our neighbours and beyond.”

He said President John Mills seems to be a lucky man because he became president at a time the nation’s economy has been expanded alongside record high prices of Gold and Cocoa on the international market and on top of all of these, he said “Ghana is now an oil rich nation.”

Addressing the closing ceremony of a workshop organized for NPP researchers from the ten regions in Tamale last year, Akufo Addo said “this newfound wealth presents an additional opportunity for a visionary leader with a programme; to take critical steps to transform our economy. If we continued on the old path to rely on crude oil exports, we would end up getting the same low value economy that we have gotten from gold and cocoa over the last century. This must change.”

Nana Akufo Addo however acknowledged that; in spite of all the glittering opportunities presented the nation today, a President will require a minimum of ten years to prepare a meaningful program of industrialization and modernization to fully transform Ghana’s economy, putting premium to the now acceptable convention of allowing elected Presidents to utilize the two-term optional mandate.

The NPP leader believes Ghana has what it takes “to position ourselves as the Taiwan or Brazil of the West African region of more than a quarter of a billion people. That is the way to go.”

“With the right programme in place, in the next ten years, Ghana can become a self-sustainable, confident economy in many ways, with an extensive, modern agricultural industry that will feed our neighbours and beyond,” he added.**