My fellow Ghanaians:
Our dear Nation celebrated 55 years of republican status last Wednesday, July 1, 2015 and I congratulate the Government and good people of Ghana for this feat.
I am however, particularly saddened and disappointed that this year's Republic Day celebration has coincided with a number of sad events, especially the avoidable death of over 160 people in Accra, as a result of rain floods on June 3rd 2015, a fast deteriorating economy whose currency has gained the reputation as the worst performing currency in the whole world, steep increase in domestic fuel prices with its attendant increase in transport fares, as well as increase in utility tariffs.
It is indeed disappointing that 23 years into the Fourth Republic, our beloved country, under the National Democratic Congress, is struggling with over three years of irregular electricity supply, the worst load-shedding exercise since independence, while the President, H.E. John Dramani Mahama continues to dribble us with deadlines to this nightmare, which never materialize. It becomes more disheartening, when one observes with wonder, the NDC Government’s penchant to rush to make dubious payments of over $1.1billion while for three years, it failed to raise $100million to secure power barges to ameliorate the load-shedding exercise.
I am also disappointed, that following the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantities, which has made available to the country additional foreign revenues to the tune of over $3billion, high prices of cocoa and gold on the world market, as well as huge sums of loans secured by the Mahama administration in the region of over $18billion (leading to a debt to GDP of almost 70%), Ghana is financially bankrupt and has had to go to the International Monetary Fund, for an emergency bailout, this year.
I have also observed with grave concern, the failure of the Mahama-led NDC administration to make any concrete attempt to move Ghana towards an Industrialised economy, with only a toddling shoe factory and an illusionary Komenda Sugar factory to show.
55 years after the First Republic, and 23 years into the Fourth Republic, I am concerned at the abysmal failure of the Mahama government to give any real meaning to youth empowerment and youth employment. Education continues to be more expensive with its attendant payment of utility bills; youth unemployment continues to be on the ascendancy; the laudable policies introduced by the NPP administration to curb this menace are all failing under the NDC, who for now, are only able to boast about charades of youth employment initiatives.
In 23 years of the Fourth Republic, the NDC has been privileged to manage the affairs of our dear country for 15 years! That Ghana is worse off since the NPP left power in 2008, and that the Mahama- led NDC, has been the worst performing government under the Fourth Republic, are indisputable. The imminent collapse of almost all the social intervention policies inherited from the Kufuor-led NPP administration, including the NHIS and School Feeding Programme, is there for all to see.
In all this, we the good people of Ghana recognize our Fore bearers, and the current generation, whose faith in multi-party democracy as the best form of state governance, has carried us this far.
Still a proud Ghanaian and a supporter of the Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP, I take this opportunity to reassure my compatriots, and the good people of Ghana that the NPP as a Party, led by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is poised to win the 2016 elections and return to power with hope for a safe, happy and prosperous nation, for all citizens of Ghana.
God bless us all.
YAW P. K. MANU