[ 2016-05-30 ]

Mahama cannot help Ghana – Akufo-Addo

The 2016 presidential candidate of the New
Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has
indicated that President John Dramani Mahama’s
stay in office has proven that he has no vision
for the forward movement of Ghana, and, as such,
cannot be trusted to turn around Ghana’s
dwindling fortunes.


Speaking at an NPP branch meeting in Paris, on
Saturday, May 28, Nana Akufo-Addo explained that
whilst some neighbouring countries have made giant
strides in the last 5 years, Ghana, however,
within the same time frame, and under the
leadership of President Mahama, is going
backwards.

“Cote d’Ivoire, five or six years ago was
coming from civil war. The election in 2010 led to
100,000 displaced people, 3,000 people were killed
as a result of the election between Laurent Gbagbo
and Alassane Ouattara. In five years, because of
good, strong leadership, Cote d’Ivoire is today
the number one investment destination in Africa.
They are growing at 9% a year and we are growing
at 3.9%. Last year, Cote d’Ivoire earned over
$12 billion in exports of its agricultural
products. In the same time, we earned $2
billion,” he said.

“We have to change these statistics. John
Dramani Mahama cannot help us,” he stressed.

The NPP flagbearer outlined 4 “simple” reasons
why Ghana cannot continue under President Mahama,
and “why this man cannot help us”.

According to Nana Akufo-Addo, firstly, “in the
2012 manifesto of the NDC, they promised that over
the next four years, i.e. between 2012 and 2016,
they were going to grow the economy at an average
of 8%. Last year we did 3.9%.”

Again, quoting from the 2012 NDC manifesto, which
states that “the NDC’s commitment is to
increase the contribution of the manufacturing and
industrialization sectors to our economic
development”, the NPP flagbearer indicated that
“last year, the manufacturing sector grew at
-1.9%”, whilst “mining grew at -3.18%.”

On education, Akufo-Addo again referred to the
2012 NDC manifesto, which promised the
construction of “two hundred (200) new Community
Day Senior High Schools across the country” by
the end of 2016. Up till date, he noted that
President Mahama has only been able to commission
5, with a few months to the end of 2016.

“The fourth reason. When Kufuor was leaving
office in 2008, the food import bill for our
country was $600 million. Mills and Mahama
criticized Kufuor for his performance and they
promised to reduce it. Last year, the food import
bill of our country was $1.5 billion. We are now
importing plantain into Ghana! Agriculture, which
in Kufuor’s last year was growing at 7.4%, this
last year was 0.04%. These are the facts about
Ghana, they are not my inventions. You look at the
official and budget statistics, you’ll find it
there,” he said.

He continued, “The mismanagement (of the
economy) is the reason why, today, we are back
with the IMF. We are going to change the fortunes
of our country, and put it back on the road of
prosperity and to progress.”

Nana Akufo-Addo assured that gathering that the
NPP’s main focus, under his leadership, will be
the revival of Ghana’s industry, manufacturing
and agricultural sectors, which will be key
towards generating the hundreds of thousands of
jobs required by the teeming masses of unemployed
Ghanaian youth, as well as return Ghana onto the
path of progress and prosperity.

“Apart from the plan and the programme, we have
the human resources, both at home and abroad,
amongst you, that can give our country a first
class government to be able to lead our country
forward. It is not right that in the 21st century
our people are still defecating in public. It is
not right. We are going to change these facts
about Ghana,” he added.


NPP prepared for victory
Nana Akufo-Addo assured the NPP faithfuls that the
party is preparing itself for victory in this
year’s elections, explaining that victory will
“not be for ourselves, not for our party, but
for Ghana. It’s very, very important.”

According to him, “the mess that is being
created in our country, because of the Mahama
government’s incompetence, mismanagement and
corruption, has to be cleared up. Our party is
preparing itself for the big task this year.”

He noted that polling station, electoral area,
constituency, regional and national campaign
committees have all been constituted, adding that
the training of the party’s regional and
constituency executives, in mobilizing and
canvassing for votes, has also been completed.
Training of our polling station executives will
begin in the first week of June, and hopefully,
will be completed by the end of July.

“We have also began the process of recruiting
our polling agents. We know what a sensitive and
important task that is. Whatever we have to do to
prepare the party to be in a good place for
November or December, whichever it is, we are
going to do it. We cannot afford to have a
repetition of ‘twenty seven zero’ this time.
We are not going to allow that to happen. The
battle to get a credible register is ongoing and I
am very hopeful that very soon it will come to a
conclusion”, he said.

Nana Akufo-Addo, in concluding, therefore, asked
for the support of all NPP members, indeed all
Ghanaians, both in and out of Ghana, stating that
“I want you to back me strongly with your
strength and prayers so we can take Ghana out of
the crisis she finds herself in. We have done it
before. We took Ghana from HIPC when we came to
office in 2001. We will do the same for Ghana when
we win this year.”

Source - tv3network.com|

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