Ethnic loyalties threaten national unity - NRP

The National Reform Party (NRP) has cautioned that the country's national identity and unity is being threatened by the growth in ethnic loyalties and political agenda and urged the government to play down ethnic tensions and build cohesion.

"We in Ghana are beset by chieftaincy disputes, lineage wars, tribal conflicts, religious strife and ethnic discrimination especially by chiefs and elders," it said in a communiqu? released in Accra on Tuesday after its Fourth National Council Meeting.

The communiqu? touched on several issues including the economy, water, the media and national cohesion. The party quoted the Central Regional Minister, Isaac Edumadze (MP) as saying there are 50 "flashpoints" in his region alone.

"The situation is serious but can be corrected with the requisite resolve. We have confronted and defeated this social evil before during our independence struggle. We can do so again."

The Party pointed out that ethnic politics is ultimately destructive saying "national political and social leadership must be careful about the signals we send and the conduct that we hold up for emulation".

The Party advocated as a matter of urgency a national policy on equality and unity involving legislation, enforcement, development of school curricula, civic education using state-owned media and the National Commission on Civic Education to combat "disintegrative forces".

It also advocated a commitment to proactive and vigorous political, legal and security responses to known ethnic flashpoints and re-evaluation of the role of chieftaincy in nation building to ensure that it cannot undermine our democratic republican culture.

On the economy, the Party noted that the government inherited a "crisis" from the previous government but added that it does not accept that the failure of the economy to provide the peoples' basic needs reflects a structural malaise.

"The New Patriotic Party (NPP) remains committed to (more efficient) application of the same policies that are responsible for our predicament in the first place.

These include wholesale privatisation of even basic utilities and vital social services and de-regulation of foreign investment, which our leaders believe is the solution to our problems.

Our economic managers do not even appear to have a working statistical model of our real economy with which to make reasonable and reliable predictions and evaluate the likely impact of policy interventions." The party said it sees nothing yet that justified government's prediction of a per capital Gross Domestic product of 1,000 dollars within the next seven years.

"This would involve a net growth rate of 14 percent per annum compared to the 2.5 percent we have achieved following the same policies." The Party urged the government to focus more energy and resources on addressing the problems of small and medium scale agricultural producers who are the real backbone of the economy.

The Party expressed concern about key aspects of the Private Sector Participation (PSP) in the water sector and said proponents of the programme have demonstrated "worrisome intolerance" to opposing views and a reluctance to provide details to the public of the actual contracts under negotiation.

It said proponents of the PSP have not offered any evidence that the problem is public ownership and management. The Party urged the government to halt implementation of the PSP programme until a national debate is properly concluded and publish all information required to inform such a debate, especially the draft contracts or model agreements.

On the media, the Party said many ordinary citizens are worried that they are becoming increasingly "irrelevant to our developmental process". It said the core concern appears to be that the media increasingly reflect the mostly political concerns and views of only a small section of society. "Related to this is a concern that in the service of these narrow interests, factual reporting is giving way to ideological 'propaganda'.

Related to this is an unhealthy self-absorption and self-indulgence to the extent that some media personnel are actually dismissive of the reading, listening and viewing public."

The Party called for an enhanced state support for media training institutions, preferential tax rates or tax holidays for media houses, greater insulation of state-owned media from Executive, and the party, influence and strengthening of the National Media Commission (NMC) and its insulation from Executive influence.

It said the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) must play a greater role in ensuring higher media standards and greater respect for the media.