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General News of Thursday, 31 July 2008

Source: The Chronicle

Ghana Faces Economic Doom ...

If NDC wins the elections
The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has urged Ghanaians not to make the mistake to return the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to power, during this year’s general elections. According to the NPP, NDC poses a great threat to the nation’s economic stability, National Health Insurance Scheme and above all, would draw the nation back into its old days.

“Ghanaians must not change NPP for NDC, because NDC poses a threat to our stable democracy, good governance and rule of law,” Dr. Apraku warned. Addressing the media yesterday, after the first phase of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s campaign tour, Dr. Kofi Konadu Apraku, the national campaign director said, “I urge Ghanaians to return NPP to power again. Ghanaians must not change NPP for NDC. NDC poses a risk to our stabilised economy, they will re-introduce higher inflation, higher international debts, higher interest rates and unstable cedi.”

Dr. Kofi Konadu Apraku, who was flanked by top party executives, including the national chairman, Mr. Peter Mac Manu, Mr. Alan Kyerematen, the former Minister of Trade and Industry, Hon. Yaw Osafo-Maafo, former Minister of Finance, Prof. Mike Oquaye, the Greater Accra Regional chairman for the NPP campaign monitoring team, Ms. Gloria Akufo, former Minister of Aviation, Nana Ohene-Ntow, the General Secretary of the party and a host of others, said the party after touring the whole country, has come to realise that Ghanaians would return the NPP back to power, with a massive victory.

The Campaign Director, who enumerated the achievements of the NPP, stressed that the nation wanted to move forward and that a vote for the NDC would be a vote for retrogression of the nation’s progress. “They want to take us back, but we want to move forward with Ghana. In short, they want to put at risk all that we have achieved together over the past seven and half years and the future we have outlined here, today. He asserted that NPP was ready to lead this nation into a future with better health, better schools, more roads and many others.

On plans for the campaign, Dr. Apraku said in the next few weeks, the party would assemble at Takoradi to outdoor their manifesto and to present the running mate to the general public, saying “We have a very exciting manifesto that will be a blue print for the future of our country. After that we shall visit every region and every constituency, with our message of hope for the people.” Dr. Kofi Konadu, who spoke on the future of the NPP, its education policies, healthcare, values and problems among others, admitted that the party had gone through serious difficulties as far as the parliamentary primaries were concerned. He said the party has regretted over some actions of party members which resulted in violence.

“Our Parliamentary primaries have been vigorously contested as a result of our democratic traditions and the great prospects for our party in December. This has led in a few places to rising of tempers which regrettably resulted in violence. While we regret these incidents, the truth is that the overwhelming majority of our primaries were peaceful.” He promised that in the next few days, the party would resolve all outstanding issues resulting from the primaries and move their arsenal into a full pronged campaign with united front to win the upcoming elections.

He noted that apart from the fact that NPP believed in the rule of law and had bettered the living standard of many Ghanaians, the masses would compare the records of both the NPP and the NDC, to be able to judge. “As we in the NPP have indicated before, this election is about the respective records in government, of mainly the NPP and the NDC, our different vision for the future and the leadership abilities of our Presidential candidates. We know that some are opposed to comparison but we welcome it,” Dr. Apraku stated.

He continued, “It is only reasonable basis for making important choices that face the electorate. The days when decisions at the ballot were determined by ethnicity, misinformation and intimidation, are giving way to the new politics of ideas, of issues and of records.” According to Dr. Apraku, despite the philosophy of the NDC of being social democrats, they failed to support programmes which were socially oriented. Responding to questions on the NDC allegation that the NPP is collaborating with the Electoral Commission to rig the forthcoming elections, Dr. Apraku said, the NDC knows that they have already lost the elections and was only preparing the minds of Ghanaians to create chaos and anarchy in the country. To this end, he said NPP would do everything within its power to beat NDC hands down, so that they would have nothing to complain about.