Private businesses in Ghana thrive the “most” under the National Democratic Congress, former President John Mahama has stated.

He said claims that the opposition party, which is socialist in orientation, is against business are false and misleading.

Speaking at the first enrollment ceremony at the NDC’s ideological Institute in Accra, Mahama urged members of the party to be proud of their ideological and their achievement while in power.

“Indeed some of the parties that call themselves conservative parties have moved left from centre and today are involved in social safety nets like National Health Insurance, Free Senior High School and others that are all social democratic programmes and so we must be proud of our ideological orientation and we must redefine it so that people clear the misconception they have about social democracy.

“We must let people know that our party is not against business. In times that our party has been in government, businesses have prospered the most. Even so-called conservative and property-owning parties in Africa cannot afford to be the kind of conservative parties that we find elsewhere,” he stated.

He added: “If you go to the developed countries, when the conservatives come to power they whittle away social welfare but in Africa, you can’t whittle away social welfare”.

He also dispelled rumours that the NDC school was set up for sinister motives.

“Contrary to widespread perception, institutes like this are not institutes for indoctrinating people. The perception in the First Republic was that the ideological institutes were set up to brainwash and to become ideologically robust of the governing party”.