Full Text of Prof. J. A. Mills' Press Conference

?THE STATE OF OUR NATION: THE WAY FORWARD? ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR JOHN EVANS ATTA-MILLS, NDC FLAGBEARER, ON THE OCCASION OF THE NDC ?PUBLIC FORUM? HELD IN ACCRA ON TUESDAY MARCH 2, 2004.

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Fellow Ghanaians, This is the last year of President Kufuor?s NPP administration. God on our side, I shall assume the Presidency of this country after the December 2004 elections. As I prepare myself for this onerous responsibility, it becomes important for me, together with you, to review the state of our nation today. This effort to reach out to you underscores my personal commitment and that of the leadership of the NDC to openness, more accessibility, and greater involvement of Ghanaians in the decision-making process.

Through this interaction, I will give you a broad outline of my plans for this country. I will answer your questions and explain to you what I am going to do differently when I am elected President of Ghana.

My Brothers and sisters, To begin with, the inability of the NPP Government to meet the high expectations the Party raised through its populist campaign messages in 2000 has resulted in loss of confidence in and distrust for political office holders. The distrust has been deepened by the observable affluent lifestyle and insincerity of some members of the NPP Government. My goal is to restore a fundamental trust and confidence between Government and the people.

Those who know me well enough, be they students I have taught, colleagues I have worked with, sportsmen I have played with or competed against, religious leaders or ordinary people I have come into contact with, know that I mean what I say. It is true that I will need the votes of the electorate to implement my programme for this nation, but one thing I will not do is to lie my way to the highest office of the land.

My experience in Government reinforced my convictions about being honest, courageous and realistic in public service. Being in opposition has given me time to reflect and conduct a truthful assessment of our situation. I thank God for the experience. It has made me more determined than ever before to offer this nation a visionary leadership. Mine will be a leadership of truth, courage and a leadership that the people of this nation can trust and have faith in. I will lead this nation through decisive action.

My Dear Brothers and sisters, I must admit that while we were in office, there were areas we could have applied ourselves to more diligently. As humans, however, we take some of these shortcomings as part of the learning process. Any lapses on our part have now become part of our solid experience in governance.

Everyone has shortcomings, and our electoral defeat was the peoples? way of telling us to revisit our period of governance and fix our shortcomings. We have put our weaknesses in the right perspective and I believe we have found solutions to those shortcomings.

I can?t change yesterday; that would be looking back. I can only make use of most of today. But I can definitely look forward with hope towards tomorrow. We must as a people have a noble purpose in life and work towards that purpose.

Fortunately, this is a new-look NDC that combines the experience of the old and the talent and enthusiasm of the new. Driven by our new Social Democratic agenda, the new NDC is coming with fresh ideas to galvanise our society for a future of prosperity and hope.

Under my leadership, we will together build a society that cares for every person and a society where equal rights and responsibilities for all persons will not be mere rhetoric. Justice, peace, unity and tolerance will be my watchwords. I will not compromise on them because those qualities will ensure that we work together, generate wealth together and enjoy prosperity together.

Fellow Ghanaians,
I know what comes on your mind when you look back on the 3 years of the Kufuor administration. These have been 3 years of largely unfulfilled promises. It is not only the promises that were made during the 2000 election campaign that remain unfulfilled, but also promises actually contained in the President?s successive ?State of the Nation? Addresses of 2001, 2002 and 2003. Indeed, if there is anything certain to credit the NPP Government with, it is its unflinching readiness to promise what it cannot deliver.

In 2001, the President promised to finish the refurbishment of Job 600 for MPs to use as offices; he also promised that people will no longer need to produce membership cards in this or that political party in order to enjoy the benefits of public policy. In 2002, he promised to create a situation where secondary education would not be priced out of the reach of children from less privileged families; to eradicate guinea worm by the middle of 2002 and to provide every school child in Ghana with a desk to use and access to basic textbooks by the middle of the year 2002.

2002 was also the year of the infamous US$1 billion loan scam, the unconstitutional accumulation of GETFUND, District Assemblies? Common Fund and Road Fund arrears, and the suspension of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility Programme with the IMF.

In 2003, President Kufuor promised that the way forward in Dagbon was to allow due process to establish the truth, however unpalatable, and to proceed to dispense justice therefrom. He also promised that a Mauritius Company was to set up a sub-regional cotton-processing factory in Ghana with an initial investment of $67 million.

In place of these promises, what we have is an unemployment situation that continues to rise alarmingly. The cruellest blow was inflicted on the one million unemployed youth who were made to queue in the scorching sun for days to register for jobs that did not exist. In the end, the only people who got jobs were the NPP activists who were engaged for the period to register the unemployed. Even they lost their jobs once the exercise was over.

Fellow Ghanaians
As I speak to you today, none of the promises I have quoted from President Kufuor?s ?State of the Nation? Addresses have been fulfilled. Job 600 remains uncompleted and our MPs still have no offices. Opposition Party members and supporters have been thrown out of jobs and replaced by card-bearing NPP members and NPP members and supporters are the ones who are getting most of the juiciest contracts.

Secondary education is being priced out of the reach of children from less privileged families. From a situation where Ghana ranked second best in guinea worm eradication at the time the NDC Government was leaving office, the country reportedly now ranks second worst in world guinea worm infestation after the Sudan. Ghanaians are the better witnesses as to whether every school child in Ghana has a desk and has access to basic textbooks as promised by the President in 2002.

Even though there is an uneasy peace in Dagbon, justice is far from being dispensed in that part of the country. The investing Mauritius cotton Company is yet to arrive.

Even in his last year in office, President Kufuor continues to make promises. He promised in his ?State of the Nation? address this year to abolish all fees and levies in the 40 most deprived districts and to rehabilitate the Accra and Kumasi stadia.

It is as if the NPP Government believes Ghanaians have a short memory and cannot measure what it promised yesterday against what it has achieved today.

As the 2004 contest draws near, the NPP will no doubt subject the good people of Ghana to further doses of vain promises. It will even lay claim to achievements recorded under previous Governments. We saw this clearly in the book titled ?So Far, So Good? published by the NPP Government in 2002. I know the electorate?s sense of judgement has sharpened even further since the 2000 election and so would not be carried away by the fantasies of the sweet-talking spin-doctors of the NPP.

These spin-doctors have sought to create the impression that former President Rawlings is the one challenging President Kufuor for the Presidency by focusing all attention on him. President Kufuor, as the records show, served under the PNDC Government, described as a military Government. I, on the other hand, served in the NDC Government, a constitutional Government. Both of us had one boss, in his dual incarnations as ex-Chairman Rawlings and ex-President Rawlings. Both of us paid our dues to the nation in different capacities and at different times of the country?s development.

The current race for the Presidency is between Kufuor and Atta-Mills and not between Kufuor and Rawlings. So it is about time the spin doctors directed their issues to me instead.

I have also heard some people who are disenchanted with the Kufuor Government and its failed promises ask time and time again ?what is the alternative?? Most of these people seem to think that there is no alternative to the Kufuor Government and have therefore resolved or decided that they will not vote during the elections. To those people, I say there is an alternative, a better alternative that has been staring you in the face all this time. If you open your eyes, you will see it very clearly. I, and the Government that I will form, represent the alternative.

Fellow Ghanaians,
The ?state of our nation? today is not the best. A lot has been said about the macro-economic performance of the economy under President Kufuor. The stark truth, however, is that a majority of Ghanaians are facing untold hardships. One common complaint that is currently resounding in every Ghanaian language is: ?things are very hard?. Indeed people go on to say ?never before have things been so hard in Ghana?.

There is widespread disillusionment. Several businesses and companies have collapsed under the NPP Government. Many parents are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the high cost of education and this has led to a high school dropout rate. Water rates, electricity tariffs and the prices of goods and services in general have risen two-fold, in some cases three-fold.

Fellow Ghanaians,
The Health Sector is in crisis as never before. The exodus of Ghanaian health professionals has assumed alarming proportions. Five months after the NPP majority in Parliament passed the National Health Insurance Act; the Ministry of Health is now advertising the proposed Minimum Benefits Package under the Scheme for public comment. In other words, the Act has been passed but what one is entitled to under the Act is now being discussed. It is a clear case of putting the cart before the horse.

The NPP Government is unable or unwilling to implement the two major funding mechanisms under the Scheme, which have attracted strong opposition from civil society and political parties. These are the two and a half per cent VAT increase and the two and a half per cent workers? SSNIT contribution deductions.

Meanwhile, there is the problem of inadequate health personnel to manage the Scheme. This issue was prominent among the concerns the minority in Parliament raised during the debate over the National Health Insurance Scheme. As usual, the Government did not listen. It is too early yet to start counting the fallouts from the rush to implement the Scheme, so I do not want to say, ?We told you so?.

Fellow Ghanaians,
The political atmosphere is marked with tension and divisiveness. For the 3 years and over that the NPP Government has been in power, it has exhibited a high degree of political intolerance. The Government?s handling of political dissent and its reliance on the instruments of fear, intimidation and harassment to rule this nation is the source of the political tension. Appeals from the NDC and well-meaning Ghanaians for President Kufuor to meet with the opposition to find ways of reducing the political tension in the country have gone unheeded. The Kufuor administration professes to be a listening Government. In reality, however, it seldom listens to those with dissenting views.

In spite of the rhetoric of all-inclusiveness, the Kufuor administration has waged a cruel and relentless vendetta against leaders and members of the NDC. The leadership of the PNC, the CPP, the GCPP, and the National Reform Party have at various times suffered harassment at the hands of the NPP Government.

It saddens me that President Kufuor has lost a golden opportunity to strengthen the unity of this nation for development. Our expectation at the time we were handing over was that the NDC in opposition would work together with the Government to move this nation forward. We felt that the Joint Transitional Team set up at our instance would facilitate such cooperation. Unfortunately, it died in incubation because, unknown to us, the NPP had a different agenda.

Fellow Ghanaians,
The Government has always sought to explain away its failures by referring to the state in which the NDC left the country when the Party was leaving power in 2001, which they describe as ?the mess we inherited?. I am not saying everything was perfect at the time we were leaving office, but I can tell you that the colours of gloom with which the nation?s state of affairs were painted at the time were blended in the NPP?s propaganda gallery.

My brothers and sisters,
The reality at the time we were leaving office was that the economic situation was quite stable, despite all the difficulties of the preceding year, including the serious energy crisis of 1998, erratic weather conditions, poor commodity prices, and global economic instability fuelled by currency speculation. The difficulties were aggravated by world crude oil prices that escalated and cocoa and gold prices that plummeted. The situation created macro-economic distortions resulting in an increase in the debt burden, the near depletion of foreign reserves, high interest rates, and a high inflation rate.

Despite these difficulties, the nation recorded a modest growth of 3.7%. The state of our nation? at the time was that from a situation where the national electricity grid did not go beyond Kumasi, every regional capital, every district capital and over 4000 communities had been connected to the national grid at the time we were handing over power. The legacy also includes the Aboadze Thermal plant which added about 30% to our generation capacity and when fully completed will add a further 25%.

The NDC left behind a good number of motorable roads and several on-going road construction projects. The NPP in opposition used to argue that we had constructed too many roads instead of putting money in people?s pockets. It is significant to note that President Kufuor in Government has realised the importance of roads, so much so that for some road projects, he now divides the road into stretches and cuts the sod several times for their commencement.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
We had come from a situation where there was less than 1 telephone line per 1,000 persons to one where there were 30 telephone lines per 1,000 persons.

Our Education Reform Programme had doubled school enrolment at both basic and senior secondary levels and more than tripled it at the tertiary level at the time we were leaving office.

Government health facilities had increased from 674 in 1994 to 859 at the time we were leaving office and the number of hospitals in the public sector had increased from 62 to 82 within the same period. Infant mortality had dropped from 66.4 per 1,000 live births in 1993 to 56.7 per 1,000 live births.

In the information and broadcasting sector, the state-owned GBC monopoly over TV and radio had been broken and at the time we were leaving office, there were 4 television stations and more than 40 private FM stations operating throughout the country.

How can any truthful and God-fearing President look at these facts and statistics in the face and tell the very people who were its beneficiaries that at the time we were handing over power in January 2001, ?the infrastructure of the country was in total shambles, the national telecommunication system had been bled into unimaginable inefficiencies, the energy sector was riddled with many unproductive white elephant projects, our hospitals had degenerated into infernos (whatever that means), and our educational institutions were begging for expansion and refurbishment?. This he said in his ?State of the Nation? address this year?

Should it be that politicians must despise the truth for the sake of political expediency?

Unlike the situation that faced us in 2000, the NPP Government has been blessed with historical near all-high world cocoa prices and soaring gold prices, resulting in windfall revenue gains to the Government. What has the NPP Government done with those gains?

Fellow Ghanaians,
Coming in wet from its previous failures and blunders, the NPP Government is trying to put up a brave face with a 2004 budget that has been aptly described as an ?election budget?.

A careful study of the 2004 Budget reveals that far from being pro-poor, it actually discriminates against the poor and low-income earners. There are many things wrong with the Budget, but as a man whose speciality is taxation, let me illustrate my point with the so-called tax relief measures in the Budget.

An analysis of those tax reliefs shows that the actual benefits are just marginal. With respect to the reduction in corporate tax rates from 32.5% to 30%, the 2004 budget states that this will take effect from 2005. The question is why not now? It is one of the mysteries of the 2004 budget and one wonders how the present administration expects to bind its successor with a tax measure when that successor Government will be presenting its own revenue measures in 2005.

Second, from the time the NPP Government came to power in 2001, it never revised the exemption threshold and the bands leading to higher tax payments when increases in wages and salaries were awarded. Under the 2004 budget, that threshold has been raised from ?1.2million to ?1.5million. Even though this is a step in the right direction, it is not sufficient, considering the overall economic hardships facing low-income earners. The TUC has calculated that a worker who receives ?539,861.83 per month (which indeed approximates the situation of a large number of workers), will gain only ?2,201.04 a month, while a worker whose taxable salary is ?1,884,298.33 a month, will gain only ?6,250.00 a month with the new tax relief.

Third, the corporate tax rate, which has now been reduced from 30% to 25% for companies listing on the Stock Exchange for the first time, may be meaningless considering the process a Company has to go through and the requirements it has to comply with before being listed on the Stock Exchange.

Fourth, the special income tax rates for agro and waste processing firms under which new industries that will engage in agro-processing will enjoy a 5-year tax holiday and thereafter reduced tax rates of 20% for those who locate in Accra and Tema, 10% for some regional capitals, and zero rate for location outside the regional capitals raises its own problems. Experience shows that tax holidays and tax reductions are ranked very low in the priority of investors in their choice of location for their businesses. The major considerations are demand for the product, infrastructure such as electricity, water, roads and telecommunications, a skilled work force, and social services.

Fifth, the expectation of the Government appears to have been that since the Budget did not increase taxes and other duties, there should be no price increases. The reality however is that our imports are paid for in foreign currency. In 2003, there was a depreciation of 4.7% in the US dollar, 19% in the euro, and 14% in the pound sterling.

Currency depreciations, combined with increases in wages and salaries and increases in the cost of other inputs, are bound to result in significant increases in prices in the course of the year. The recent special task force set up by Government to check so-called arbitrary price increases by selected companies confirms this analysis, and is clearly a panic measure. The real problem is the cumulative effect of three years of wrong policies, of over-taxation and of the instability of the cedi against the major foreign currencies. Clearly, the ?election budget? gimmick of cosmetic reductions in taxes will not lessen the hardships on the ordinary Ghanaian, not when new taxes such as the 2?% VAT increase are being introduced.

The 2004 Budget is not referred to as an ?election budget? for nothing. Government officials have dropped hints of possible reduction in electricity tariffs any time soon. Interestingly no mention has been made of the fact that this possible reduction is the result of the shutdown of VALCO which has brought in its wake the direct loss of over three thousand direct jobs. There are also hints that there could be a downward review of prices of some petroleum products.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Since the beginning of 2003, I have insisted that the petroleum price increases as well as increases in utility tariffs are too high. I have been accused of playing politics with the economy. So how genuine is the Government?s planned decision to reduce tariffs in this election year? I will only tell Ghanaians: ?beware of the NPP when they come bearing gifts!

Fellow Ghanaians,
I still believe that a realistic view of our present national situation is captured in the NDC?s ?Ghana: Vision 2020? document. In line with that Vision, my Presidency will aim at a GDP growth rate that will ensure that jobs can be created to provide employment for the millions of registered unemployed and the tens of thousands of the unemployed who enter the job market every year.

My Presidency will also aim to reduce the cost of living and strive towards paying a wage that can take care of the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter and leave a little extra to cover education, health and electricity bills. An empowered, virile and dynamic private sector, supported by an efficient, cost-effective and productive public sector, should be able to generate the wealth and ensure the prosperity that will enable this wage to be paid. This is my pledge to the private sector, to employers and to both organized and unorganized labour.

Fellow Ghanaians,
I cannot leave the issue of the economy without talking about the national debt. When the President introduced the innovation of denominating our national debt in cedis in his first ?State of the Nation? Address, we warned the NPP Government that it was not correct. They persisted and the NDC accepted the quoted total outstanding post-Independence national debt, external and domestic, of ?41 Trillion, as its own, and lived with the taunting of the ?opim, pim, pim, pim? on the air waves for the first two years of the NPP administration.

Now the Minister of Finance has turned round to say that it is incorrect to denominate the external debt in cedis, and that it is even more incorrect to add the external debt converted into cedis to the domestic debt and present it to the nation as the total national debt.

Now, the size of the national debt is no longer quoted in figures but as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as can be found in the ?State of the Nation? Address of the President and the Budget Statement of the Finance Minister.

Today, according to the Minister of Finance, the total external debt from January 2001 is US$6.5 billion. This converts to ?61.2 Trillion. Using the Kufuor formula, add the total domestic debt of ?14.8 Trillion for the same period, and the total is ?76 Trillion. Subtract the ?41 Trillion so-called NDC debt, which actually comprises the debts incurred by all pre-NPP Governments since Independence, that is, the CPP, NLC, PP, NRC, SMC, AFRC, PNP, PNDC, NDC I and NDC II Governments, a period spanning 44 years, and that leaves ?35 Trillion. In other words, for the 3-year period only that the NPP Government has been in office, it has added ?35 Trillion to the national debt. The question is, what has the Kufuor administration to show for this level of debt?

Fellow Ghanaians,
The NDC?s portion of the ?41 trillion debt that the NPP trumpeted on the airwaves was what was used to transform the economy and to restore the broken down economic and social infrastructure of the country.

The roads that we built, the electricity that we extended to all 10 regional capitals, all 110 district capitals and over 4,000 communities countrywide, the 3 state-of-the-art Regional Hospitals and the numerous district hospitals and health centres; the expansion of the educational system to include two more public Universities, a Polytechnic in each regional capital, and over 400 Senior Secondary Schools ? all these formed part of the legacy that the NDC Government left behind with its part of the ?41 trillion debt.

Fellow Ghanaians,
Any objective observer of the road sector would have realised by now that but for the NDC?s road sector programme and strategy, the NPP Government would have had nothing to boast of, coming into office as they did with no programmes and strategies of their own for the sector.

The NDC?s road sector strategy had been first to decongest the inner city roads through a series of Urban Projects and other interventions. Under that strategy, Kumasi, being the central hub of our inter-city road system, was given priority attention. After concentrating particular attention on reconstructing and asphalting Kumasi city roads, we turned our attention to the major arterial roads leading out of Kumasi. These included the following:

(i) Kumasi-Sunyani Road;

(ii) Kumasi-Mampong road;

(iii) Kumasi-Offinso road;

(iv) Kumasi-Anhwia Nkwanta road.

The latter three roads continued as:

(i) Kumasi-Mampong-Atebubu-Yeji road;

(ii) Kumasi-Offinso-Techiman-Kintampo-Tamale-Bolgatanga-Paga road;

(iii) Kumasi-Anhwia Nkwanta-Yamoransa Junction-Cape Coast road; respectively.

From Kumasi, we turned our attention to Accra city roads. Major road reconstruction works covered the following:

(i) Motorway Extension;

(ii) Obetsebi Lamptey Circle-Mallam road;

(iii) Tetteh Quarshie Circle-High Street multi-lane road;

(iv) Kanda Highway;

(v) King Tackie Tawia Overpass;

(vi) Sankara Interchange;

(vii) Central Business District roads;

(viii) Darkuman roads;

(ix) Dansoman roads;

(x) Teshie Town roads;

(xi) Adabraka Town roads;

and the several other city roads that we have taken for granted today.

At the time we were handing over power, we had turned our attention to the arterial roads leading out of Accra, which President Kufuor has adopted under the Infrastructure development component as one of his five priority areas of the economy. We had finished with the design and secured financing for all these roads namely:

(i) Kwame Nkrumah Circle-Achimota-Nsawam-Anyinam section of the Accra-Kumasi road;

(ii) Tetteh Quarshie Interchange;

(iii) Tetteh Quarshie Interchange-Pantang Junction-Mamfe section of the Accra-Koforidua road;

(iv) Mallam-Winneba Junction-Yamoransa Junction section of the Accra-Cape Coast road, and

(v) Tema-Sogakope section of the Accra-Tema-Sogakope-Aflao road.

A number of these road projects would have been completed by now but for the unhelpful attitude adopted by the Kufuor administration upon assumption of office. In many cases, contracts that had been awarded by the NDC Government were abrogated, renegotiated, and re-awarded much later, often times to the same contractor, and at much higher prices. In the particular case of the Malam-Yamoransa road, but for the defeat of the NDC and the subsequent adoption of HIPC, the road would have been completed last year. As it is now, the road is being reconstructed in phases.

Our Government will ensure that the Mallam-Yamoransa, road as well as all the other roads I have mentioned which are so dear to our hearts, are reconstructed in their entirety in the shortest possible time.

Virtually all the other roads for which there have been double or sometimes triple sod-cutting ceremonies had been conceived, designed, and in most cases, financing negotiated or secured by the NDC Government at the time we were handing over.

When we are back in office in January 2005, we shall take on these projects and ensure their expeditious completion.

Fellow Ghanaians,
For some time, the energy sector has been plunged into a state of confusion. An indigenous blue chip state-owned corporate gem such as the VRA is embroiled in controversy. It has become the laughing stock of humorists and media writers. Needless management experimentation with VRA has cost the nation. A lot has already been said about the VRA?s Strategic Reserve Plant (SRP) and other reported acts of financial malfeasance. I assure you the last has not been heard yet, not when I am President. For now, we are throwing our weight behind the Minority in their efforts to have a Parliamentary enquiry opened into the affairs of the VRA for the last two and a half years, at least until about three months ago.

We also realise that our National Electrification Programme is being haphazardly implemented. We did not only have a plan; we also had a strategy to ensure the attainment of our objective to extend electricity to every settlement with a population of over 500 by year 2017. We will reactivate this strategy when we are back in office in January 2005.

We will take another look at the processes for the deregulation of the petroleum sector and make sure that Government does not abandon its responsibility of ensuring that this vital lubricant of the economic engine of state is not left to be determined solely by forces whose primary motivation is profit. Above all, we will review the hidden taxes in the price of petroleum products.

With petroleum prices at record high and transport fares sky rocketing, the issue of public and mass transportation has assumed crisis proportions. The Government?s introduction of the Metro Mass Transport Company has been at the expense of the existing mass transport companies. A new company providing mass public transport must not replace but complement existing ones. In line with this, our Government will seek to rationalise the public transport sector to rehabilitate the traditionally tried and tested transport companies ? the Omnibus Services Authority and the City Express Service and transport organisations such as the GPRTU and PROTOA.

Fellow Ghanaians,
My programme under agriculture is to help increase the productivity of our farms and therefore to bring down the cost of food. It should be possible to reduce by half the percentage of income that Ghanaians spend on food. This will require particular emphasis on irrigation, especially in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions.

Our previous pursuit of the objective of becoming self sufficient in rice production will be revived. Urgent attention will therefore be paid to the resuscitation of the rice industry, including the revival of the Quality Grain Rice Project at Aveyime in the Volta Region.

We will aim at doubling other grain output, particularly maize, millet and sorghum, tripling the production of roots and tubers as an extension of our Roots and Tubers Improvement Project which began in 1997, double the output of cocoa as programmed under our hi-tech cocoa production strategy, and reduce post harvest losses from the current 25% to 10%. We will also aim at improving the marketing of agricultural produce.

It will be my goal to develop and support initiatives for domesticating sheanut in the savannah and traditional zones of the country in order to improve the income earning capacity of rural women and farmers in those zones. In the Central and Western Regions, we will adopt a coconut development strategy that will target the 11,000 hectares of coconut plantation affected by the Cape St. Paul Wilts disease for replanting. We will also encourage the expansion of the acreage of coconut plantations in all the coconut-growing areas and the processing of coconut in a big way. We will explore avenues to restrict the dumping of cheap subsidized agricultural products from other countries, especially in the rice and poultry sectors.

Fellow Ghanaians,
I believe in the old adage that prevention is better than cure. Many of our common illnesses and diseases can be eliminated or controlled through better sanitation, nutrition and change in personal habits and lifestyles. Health education programmes stressing on these would be the foundation of the health policy of my administration. This policy will engage student and youth groups, religious bodies and traditional rulers across the country in a programme that will ensure a nation of healthier people.

Together with all stakeholders, we will also fashion out radical measures to encourage doctors, nurses and other Para-medical staff to stay in the country.

We have already expressed our concerns about the National Health Insurance Scheme, especially the indecent haste with which it was passed and the inadequacies that have been exposed even before the Scheme comes into operation. The additional hardships to be imposed on the people through the funding mechanisms provided for in the Act are also problematic. We will review the National Health Insurance Act when we assume office, and based on the pilot projects conducted when we were in office, we will implement a revised National Health Insurance Scheme without the 2.5 per cent workers? SSNIT contributions and without the 2.5 per cent VAT increase.

Fellow Ghanaians,
The historical discrimination against women is an in-eradicable reality. Children continue to suffer disadvantages. Yet those two form the core of our family system.

I propose to review the mandate of the Ministry of Women and Children?s Affairs to take account of that reality in designing programmes to cover micro-loan financing, improved skills and access to services, protection of the property rights of spouses, reduction in maternal and infant mortality and the integration of pre-school education into the FCUBE system.

It is my decision also to separate Sports from the Ministry of Education Youth and Sports, and to re-establish the Ministry of Youth and Sports. It served us well in the past. It is also the worldwide trend.

As a knowledgeable sportsman, it is my conviction that it is only through proper planning that we can excel in the national and international arena. I will therefore prioritise the various sports disciplines and provide funding as appropriate, sharing the cost between the Government and the private sector.

Fellow Ghanaians,
My first priority, however, will be education. Sometimes, I ask myself, so if we had given in to the NPP-in-opposition and not established the GETFUND, funded with 2? per cent of the VAT, what would the NPP-in-Government have done? This is because the GETFUND appears to have become the salvation of the NPP Government in the education sector. Every funding problem in the education sector is off-loaded on to the GETFUND, to the extent that now it is the President, rather than the legally mandated GETFUND Board or the GETFUND Secretariat, who announces GETFUND disbursements to tertiary institutions as he did when he was awarded the Honorary Doctorate of Law degree by the University of Cape Coast.

Under my Presidency, the GETFUND will be de-politicised. The Fund will be used to expand and improve infrastructure in the institutions and ensure that as many eligible students both in the public and private tertiary institutions are covered. All decisions relating to the GETFUND will issue from the Board as was envisaged when we set it up. I will also ensure that there are no GETFUND arrears. Above all, the GETFUND will not become a substitute for annual budgetary allocation for the education sector.

We will place emphasis on vocational and technical education, science, technology and mathematics for girls, girl-child education generally, and computer literacy in order to prepare our students for the world for work.

I pledge to ensure that FCUBE means exactly what it states, that is, free, compulsory, universal, basic education. We want to ensure that every Ghanaian child has at least basic education. Our revised FCUBE Programme, which will be one of the first policy documents to be outdoored after I have been inaugurated as President in January 2005, will set a target year by which every Ghanaian must have basic education or must be functionally literate.

We will re-examine the problem of high school fees for senior secondary school students which the NPP Government has raised to unaffordable levels, apply ourselves diligently to the problem of the Polytechnics, especially in relation to HND grading and placement in jobs, and revisit and review the RECAAST proposal in the Education Reform Programme with a view to its early implementation.

Fellow Ghanaians,
Housing, especially for low and lower-middle income earners in the urban and rural areas, will be one of my topmost priorities. Under the NDC Government, the adoption of prudent measures including tax and other incentives led to dramatic increases in investments in the real estate sector. This led to the emergence of housing estates throughout the country.

My housing policy will include the direct involvement of the Government and district assemblies in the provision of affordable housing whilst providing the opportunity and the environment for individuals to own their own homes.

The long-overdue review of the Rent Act will be undertaken under my Presidency, if it has not been done by the time I assume office.

Fellow Ghanaians,
My Government will work to reduce the crime rate in the country. We will motivate our Police Personnel and those in other security agencies by improving remuneration and bridging the salary differentials in the sector.

The NDC Government began work on the provision of the requisite infrastructure for the military, police and other security agencies. These included the Armed Forces Housing Project which commenced in 1998 in Accra, Takoradi, Tamale and Ho Garrisons and was ongoing at the time we handed over, the renovation and rehabilitation of the 37 Military Hospital, and several others. I myself visited China in 2000 where I successfully negotiated for support for the Armed Forces in the areas of housing, equipment and uniforms.

Some of these projects have been completed and commissioned since we left office, and the promised Chinese support has arrived and has been taken delivery of by the NPP Government.

We are happy that the NPP Government continued our initiatives in the security services sector. We shall take off from where they will leave off and continue to ensure that our military establishment continues to demonstrate its ability to safeguard and defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation, while the police are empowered to be on top of internal security and in combating crime.

We will put an end to political interference in the recruitment of personnel into the Police, Military and other security agencies, as the practise does not augur well for national stability

The recent report of a record haul of narcotic drugs imported into the country has sent worrying signals throughout the Ghanaian society and the international community, so much so that tongues are wagging as to who are the real Ghanaian collaborators of the arrested foreign traffickers. This was one of the major reasons why we set up the Narcotics Control Board in our time.

We will be committed whole-heartedly to the fight to combat drug trafficking. We will make our ports and entry points no go areas for traffickers whose activities are reportedly on the increase.

The danger posed by the HIV menace, drug trafficking, illicit trade in human beings especially women and children, drug abuse and cross-border crime will all be high on our national security agenda.

Fellow Ghanaians,
The objective of national security is national peace. But an effective national security system depends on an effective justice system. Without justice, there is no peace. So the linkage between national security, peace and justice is clear. In any society where there is a perception of injustice, there is no peace. Consequently, national security is put in jeopardy.

Unfortunately, there is a growing perception in our country today that the justice system is political and partisan.

The investigative processes are seen more as opposition witch-hunts.

The exercise of prosecutorial discretion by the Attorney General?s Department is also seen to be against members of the opposition.

There is a perception of ?selective justice? in the justice system and that is not good for democracy.

Under my Presidency, I will work to ensure that the justice delivery system is seen to be fair, expeditious, accessible and even-handed.

Fellow Ghanaians,
It is good that Ghana has subscribed to the NEPAD Peer Review Mechanism. It is also good that Ghana has offered to be the first country to be reviewed under the mechanism. It is our hope that the offer has been made in all good faith and that it is not designed to whitewash the NPP Government in an election year. It would defeat the purpose of the Peer Review Mechanism if the reviewing peers should substitute their judgment for the judgment of the people of the country whose Chief Executive is being reviewed, which verdict is normally delivered during elections.

For this reason, it would be important to avoid reviewing the performance of any African Chief Executive in his or her country?s election year. It would also be important to factor into the review formula a role for the opposition parties such as the NDC in Ghana.

President Kufuor?s reviewing peers must know, for example, that since assuming office, the President and his Government have tried to keep up an international image of a democratic Government, scrupulous in its observance of human rights and the rule of law.

In Ghana, however, the reality is different. The Government has unleashed a blistering campaign of intolerance towards dissenting opinion and major opposition figures. Vengeance, vendetta and a tendency towards dictatorship and abuse of human rights are manifest.

In addition to the human rights abuses that I earlier referred to, large numbers of public servants against whom no adverse findings whatsoever have been made have been unlawfully dismissed and a campaign of ruthless reprisals pursued against ordinary citizens who are perceived to support opposition parties, especially the NDC.

The persecutions have been followed by unjustified prosecutions.

These are some of the facts that the Ghanaian opposition must and will tell President Kufuor?s reviewing peer Heads of State.

As a progressive political party, the NDC rejects unilateral political and foreign alliances without the kind of bi-partisan support necessary for the collective defence of our territorial sovereignty. My Presidency will affirm Ghana?s independent course of self-determination and non-alignment. We shall be relentless in the pursuit of our historic mission of championing the cause of Pan-Africanism within the framework of the African Union and the emancipation of the black and other oppressed people throughout the world.

Fellow Ghanaians,
A perception has been created that the electoral playing field for this year?s elections will not be even, and that the elections themselves will not be free and fair. Policy positions taken by the NPP Cabinet and reversed under the weight of public pressure have fuelled this perception. Rumours of the recruitment of police personnel through unorthodox channels have fuelled this perception to the extent that within the police, I am informed these newly recruited police personnel are referred to as ?Party Police?. The importation of arms and ammunition, ?awkwardly? cleared by non-Service personnel and stored in a civilian residential area, has fuelled this perception. The running battles that the Government has had with the Electoral Commission over the issuance of Voters? Identity Cards and the procurement of election material have also fuelled this perception. Matters have not been helped much by the Electoral Commission?s own reported appointment of a known NPP executive as head of security.

All these do not augur well for this country. This is not the first time we are conducting elections in this country, and it will not be the last. The Electoral Commission has earned an enviable reputation, and it must be allowed the necessary independence to perform as it has always done.

Fellow Ghanaians
Let me seize this opportunity to appeal to the Electoral Commission to ensure that arrangements it has made in respect of the new voter?s registration exercise and provision of photo ID cards do not cause frustration leading to the disenfranchisement of any Ghanaians. Our people are waiting and watching. Already, the situation in which the lack of an adequate number of cameras will make it necessary for the registration and picture taking to be undertaken at different times is ominous. It is a sure recipe for double registration, and I wish to appeal to the donor community even at this late date to come to the assistance of the Commission in the provision of sufficient cameras.

I wish to remind all Ghanaians that registration is the beginning of the voting process and voting is the beginning of the democratic process. As Ghanaians, we have to prove to the rest of the world that we have matured in our electoral democracy. We can only do that if we register in our numbers and turn out massively to vote during the elections.

On the subject of elections, let me make a pledge to this nation. The NDC will conduct its campaign in a peaceful manner. We invite all other political parties to do the same. I sincerely hope that when it is all over, the ruling NPP will peacefully hand over just as we did in 2000. It will be in the paramount interest of Ghana, because the people will not countenance any attempts to do otherwise.

Fellow Ghanaians,
I cannot talk about free, fair and violence-free elections without talking about fair media coverage. I acknowledge the important contributions of our media ever since we entered the Fourth Republic. I have been even more impressed since the NDC went into opposition, notwithstanding my occasional reservations about what the media have written, aired, or screened. I would only encourage the media to strive to be fair and objective. What was perceived to be wrong under one Government cannot suddenly become right when the Government changes hands. Our attachment to personalities and political groups notwithstanding, truth must always prevail.

I would like to make a special appeal to the private media. The coming election is a battle of some sort. Indeed, it is a battle in which the real adversaries are poverty, ignorance and general under-development. It is a battle that we have to win by all means, if we are to restore dignity, hope and prosperity to the people of Ghana.

I am therefore urging my friends in the private media to be vigilant and guard against subtle and gradual encroachment on the freedom and independence of the media. The frontiers of freedom, once breached, are not easily restored. Let us do away with old prejudices and help to assist in the realisation of the vision I have set for this country. Time is not on our side.

I also have some advice for the state-owned media. When the NDC was in Government, the state-owned media received a lot of bashing from the NPP opposition that they were pro-Government, even though their level of bias at the time was nowhere near where it is today. The NPP even obtained a Supreme Court judgment against the GBC for them to be fair and impartial. In opposition, the NDC is also very critical of the state-owned media, accusing them of being pro-Government.

That attitude of parties in opposition to the state-owned media creates the impression of the state-owned media being at the beck and call of the Government of the day. But the state-owned media are for the people and not for the Government. All must therefore be guided by the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of New Patriotic Party v Attorney General.

Justice K. E. Amua-Sekyi?s judgment in that case is instructive. He said, and I quote: ?The object of [Article 55(11) of the Constitution] is the provision of fair opportunity to all political parties to present their programmes to the public; and the means of achieving that is by ensuring that each party has access to the state-owned media. ?Equal access? means the same or identical terms and conditions of gaining entry into the state-owned media for the purpose of presenting their political, economic and social programmes to the electorate and persuading them to vote for them at elections. That means that the same time and space has to be given to each political party, large or small, and if fees are payable, that they should be the same for all?.

Against this background, the unilateral declaration of a political off-season by the state-owned GBC, for example, is contemptuous of the Supreme Court ruling. The NDC expects, in fact, demands, fair and equal access.

Fellow Ghanaians,
Now, corruption.
President Kufuor and his Government came to power on the bandwagon of an anti-corruption slogan. With an orchestrated propaganda, they managed to convince the people of Ghana that the NDC Government was corrupt. They carried this into a post-election NDC-bashing fever of corruption, reaching a crescendo with the conviction and sentence of dedicated, innocent and patriotic citizens who were only doing their duty to their nation like Messrs Ibrahim Adam, Kwame Peprah and George Yankey in the ?Quality Grain case, even though the presiding Judge specifically ruled out any corruption in the case.

Now evidence exists that there is corruption at the very heart of the Kufuor Presidency. President Kufuor?s defence is that there is corruption everywhere, including what he claims as countries ?such as London and Asia?, that corruption dates from the period of Adam and Eve and the serpent and the Apple in the Garden of Eden, that his way of dealing with corruption is to pinch himself to remind himself that he has sworn to resist corruption, and that when he finds corruption among his Ministers, he calls them and advises them.

My brothers and sisters,
I do not accept the President?s excuse of the history, morality and expediency of corruption as the reason for his backing down on applying the zero tolerance policy on the many shocking allegations of corruption within his Government. It is not the kind of rationalisation that we expect from our President when Transparency International has placed our country 72nd out of 133 countries on the World Corruption Index.

There are many allegations of corruption and scandals involving the President?s men and women sitting on the President?s desk unattended to, starting with the Presidency itself, but the latest corruption scandal in the Presidency which involves a Deputy Minister in the President?s office is in a special category. Yet I get the impression that the NPP is treating that case as trivial. Why does the President refuse to take action against the blatant cases of corruption in his Government?

When I assume office next January, I will lead the war against corruption by personal example. I will impose stringent rules on my own family, friends and close associates. I will make no excuses for corrupt Ministers and officials. I will strengthen the state anti-corruption institutions, make them independent of political control and free them from political manipulation. That way they will be even handed in their application of the law to bring about renewed public confidence in them.

Fellow Ghanaians,
I have watched with trepidation and increasing apprehension, the tension and divisiveness that the ruling NPP?s policy of harassment, intimidation, persecution and prosecution of supporters of the NDC and other opposition parties has created in the country. Of particular concern has been the regrettable treatment that the current NPP leadership has meted out to our former President, a man whose credentials are acknowledged internationally and especially in Africa, and to his wife.

I know that there are some in my own Party, the NDC, who are determined to pay the NPP back in their own coin when we win political power. I know that is why some NDC members are rabidly opposed to repealing the law on ?causing financial loss to the state?.

But my brothers and sisters,
Let us face it, where will vengeance and revenge lead us as a country? ?Vengeance is mine, says the Lord?, the Holy Book tells us. So who are we, mere mortals, to want to exact revenge? Besides, vengeance begets more vengeance and what we have in the end is a vicious cycle of vengeance and revenge and vengeance, instead of a united and determined people marching forward to a purposeful future?

To demonstrate my good faith in this regard, I will take steps to have the law on ?causing financial loss to the state? reviewed, alongside other laws especially of military regimes, whose selective application have generated political controversy, with a view to ensuring that they will no longer be resorted to for the purpose of settling political scores.

Fellow Ghanaians,
It has been said that the character of the man at the top transfers to the team he leads.

I, Atta-Mills, want to make a personal political pledge. Under my Presidency, there will be no political vengeance, there will be no political vendetta, and there will be no political vindictiveness. By nature, I am not a vindictive person. I am a unifier. I am a consensus-builder. I believe in bringing people together. I am a man of peace.

My brothers and sisters, Let no one mistake my wish for peace for a wish for injustice. Injustices will be righted. I will ensure that true justice is dispensed in accordance with the Constitution. That, I assure you.

For starters, I will set up a new and truly non-partisan, professionally competent and independent Presidential Commission to reopen investigations into the murder of the Ya Na Yakubu Andani II and his followers. I find it unacceptable that in the twenty-first century, an act of ?daylight murder? can be characterised as ?war? in a country that is not at war. We will continue to support the ongoing peace efforts in the Dagbon Traditional Area, but justice can never be sacrificed on the altar of peace.

Fellow Ghanaians, I have a passionate belief in a society where everyone and not just a few get a chance to succeed. My wish is for every child and every youth to make the most of their God-given talent. Every Ghanaian wants to go to school as far as his or her talents can take him or her, wants to work, wants to have a happy family life and have children, and have a healthy and normal personal life. This is not asking too much, is it?

I believe we must strike a balance between the attainment of macro-economic objectives and policies that are consistent with social priorities and the welfare of the people. For the statistics to be good, they must reflect that the people are happy. Our social democratic agenda imposes on us the responsibility to create the environment that will enable the people to be provided with the basic necessities of life at costs that are reasonable, guarantee the health, education and employment of our people, and ensure that ours is a ?participatory? as opposed to a ?propertied? democracy.

I will do my utmost to ensure that we create the conditions to motivate indigenous entrepreneurs and investors who have the adventurous spirit to break new barriers for the nation?s development. No company, business or entrepreneur will be deliberately targeted for destruction for political reasons.

We will establish a united and ethnically integrated nation and eschew the politics of exclusion and nepotism, especially the appointment of too many close relatives into key positions of influence.

As a nation, we seem to be losing too many opportunities on account of our lack of unity and sense of purpose. The renewed hope and vision that I have for Ghana will not come easy simply because we say the NPP has sent us backwards. Sometimes we learn the hard way, but it does not pay to get discouraged.

We must remove barriers to opportunity and ensure a caring society in which there is full partnership to economic progress. This we can achieve by developing a mature and tolerant democracy where opposing views are respected and where state institutions are not turned into instruments of oppression against the people.

We must create a diversified and balanced economy that is able to adapt to changing industrial and manufacturing patterns.

We must create a secure and confident nation respected and trusted by the international community.

This is my winning formula for this country.

We must bring Ghana, our beloved country, back on course.

But first we need a Government that is believed by the people

We must have the courage to tell the truth to the people.

We must restore honesty and integrity to our politics.

We must all work to restore credibility to the Presidency and to Government. I will ensure a Presidency and a Government of truth. I will ensure a Presidency of humility. I will ensure a Presidency of honesty. I will ensure a Presidency of integrity.

For after all, who is a President? I believe there is a difference between being referred to as a President because a constitutional provision says so, and a President for the people. I want to be a President for the people. I want to work day and night for the welfare of the people. I want to be your President, not the President.

This is the difference I bring.

My brothers and sisters,
Thank you, and God Bless Ghana!