Engage Political Parties in development projects- Prince Mba

Accra, Dec 10, GNA - Mr. Prince Mba, the President of Forum for National Equity, a civil society organization, has called on the leadership of political parties to undertake development projects that could provide them with good opportunities to drum home their campaign messages. "Their active engagement in development projects would give the electorate options to choose which party is serving their interest better and why they will need to vote at all in the country".

Mr. Mba, who was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on political parties and governance, said it was not enough for parties to wait until election year before putting across their projections and messages for the nation.

"If the political parties have good intentions for the people, it will reflect in the projects they undertake and their mission statements for various areas of the country and not campaign time when they come out with all kinds of promises they themselves know they cannot fulfil". He said politicians had taken the Ghanaian voters for granted over the years by making vain promises and they could only be checked and controlled by the services they offer to the public before soliciting their support. Mr. Mba said the days of political ideologies were gone and there was the need for them to concentrate on idealism to be able to appropriately and adequately serve the people who had been convinced with political ideologies to vote for political parties.

"The Ghanaian voter has now become conscious of his rights and responsibilities and therefore expects the politicians to also fulfil their side of the promise by providing the basic development projects to make them comfortable".

He said issues about creating jobs for foot soldiers of the winning party would have no place in Ghana's political history if parties were voted into power according to their performance and social services to the people. Mr Mba said the engagement of political parties in development projects would also eliminate violence and threats that characterized all the general elections in the country.

"Our system of governance is just not the best and the earlier we changed, the better for us, when you go to Bolga or Kumasi you need to pay courtesy calls on the chiefs of those areas. 10 Dec. 09