President John Mahama has said his first three years in office have been fraught with challenges.

He said despite taking decisions in the interest of the country since he came into office, there were still tough hurdles to scale.

“It has been a challenging three (3) years,” he told party members in Accra on Sunday after his endorsement as flagbearer for the 2016 general elections.

Mr Mahama said he has had to contend with “an election petition that created uncertainty and dragged on for eight long months, market fires that affected almost [all] regions of the country, nationwide strike actions, serious challenges with the economy, and the most serious of all, a power shortage, which is still with us.”

“These are just a few of the challenges that confronted the early years of my administration,” he added.

According to the President, “in these 3 years, I have been confronted with situations that have required me to take difficult decisions that ultimately have been in the interest of the nation.”

“In all such times, I have done this by seeking the face of God, but also in the realisation that the alternative of not acting would be worse for our people.

“As leader of our party, not all our members would have agreed with my style of governance or the decisions I may have made, but yet I believe we have the same objective and need to work together to achieve our shared dream,” he acknowledged.