PRESS STATEMENT
09TH
MARCH 2011
AKUFO-ADDO: WE CAN TRANSFORM GHANA IN 10 YEARS
THE Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party has
stated that his party is preparing a comprehensive programme
of industrialization and modernization that can transform
Ghana’s economy in a matter of one decade.
“What Ghana needs is a structural transformation of her
economy. We cannot improve the lives of the mass of our
people if we remain a raw material producing nation,” Nana
Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo stated.
Addressing the closing ceremony of a workshop organized for
NPP researchers from the ten regions Wednesday, Nana Addo
lamented the fact that President JEA Mills did not seem to
recognize how lucky he was, as President, to have inherited
an expanded economy, with record high gold and cocoa prices.
“On top of that, Ghana is now oil rich,” he said.
“This newfound wealth presents an additional opportunity for
a visionary leader with a programme to take critical steps
to transform our economy. If we continued on the old path to
rely on crude oil exports, we would end up getting the same
low value economy that we have gotten from gold and cocoa
over the last century. This must change.”
The NPP leader believes Ghana has what it takes “to position
ourselves as the Taiwan or Brazil of the West African region
of more than a quarter of a billion people. That is the way
to go.”
He said Ghana and other West African countries are now
importing an ever -increasing percentage of their food
products from Brazil.
“With the right programme in place, in the next ten years,
Ghana can become a self-sustainable, confident economy, in
many ways, with an extensive, modern agricultural industry
that will feed our neighbours and beyond.”
Taking a dig at the Mills-Mahama administration, Nana Addo
referred to the problems with the Savannah Accelerated
Development Authority (SADA).
“That was the vision behind our Northern Development
Authority programme which was sadly turned into a mere
propaganda, electoral tool by our opponents under sad SADA.
We will resurrect that programme to transform the North and
for the benefit of Ghana’s larger transformation programme,”
he promised.
Nana Addo referred to the opportunities, which in his view,
have gone amiss under the current Government.
He reminded his audience of the “deliberate programme by
President Kufuor to lay a solid foundation for Ghana’s
economic platform, based on our basic principles of freedom,
fairness and fraternity. We had introduced a consumer credit
economy, with a vibrant banking sector, we had introduced
the most significant social engineering programme with the
national health insurance and we
were rapidly expanding access to education and expanding
Ghana’s physical infrastructure. Unfortunately all these
programmes, which we had hoped to build on, are today
undergoing a systematic programme of rationing, at best.”
He said, Ghana has the landmass, natural resources, human
resource, political stability, economic freedoms and
individual freedoms that can be “consciously optimized to
transform our economy and bring prosperity to every Ghanaian
door step. We must get going. We need that can-do leadership
vim to get us going and fast,” he stressed.
Pointing to the ruling National Democratic Congress, Nana
Addo said, “We are wasting time under this incompetent, do
little government. The world is not waiting for us.
Ghanaians are waiting for leadership and direction. We have
a responsibility to give that to them,” he told his party
people, urging them to prepare well to win power in 2012.
He said he was drawing a lot of inspiration from the
Brazilian experience, where within a matter of one decade,
President Lula da Silva, managed to transform the nation
“from a perennial underachiever into one with strong
economic clout, and model social programs which have brought
unprecedented prosperity to the people.”
Nana Addo, in urging Ghana to learn lessons from the South
American country’s experience, said, “Brazil’s middle class
population has grown by some 29 million in 8 years and
another 20 million people, nearly as many as Ghana’s
population, have been pulled up from poverty. There is no
reason why with the three Ds – Dedication, Discipline and
Determination – we cannot achieve similar success in Ghana.
If Lula can do it for Brazil, NPP can do it for Ghana,” he
said to wide applause.
Nana Addo articulated his vision, which is to transform
Ghana from, what he called, “A Guggisberg Economy” to what
his audience, in response, instinctively termed, “an
Akufo-Addo Economy”.
He explained the transformation as including “a new economy
that makes Ghana the bread basket for West Africa and the
entire Sahelian belt, a centre for light manufacturing
industries and the financial centre of our region. This is
the programme that, by the grace of God, we will present to
the people of Ghana and implement after 2012. It would be
ambitious, planned and doable.”
Nana Addo who returned south from a trip to Yendi Tuesday,
spoke to the party workshop on the philosophy of the NPP and
his vision for Ghana.
The 3-day workshop, which took place at Mankesim, was
attended by Jake Obestebi-Lamptey, National Chairman, Fred
Oware, First Vice Chairman, Moctar Bamba, National Organiser,
Otiko Djaba, Women’s Organiser, Anthony Kabor, National
Youth Organaiser, Abubakari Suleimana, Nasara Coordinator,
Victor Newman, Brigadier Odei, Martin Adjei, resource
persons, including Peter Mac Manu and Nana Yaw Attafuah, and
the party’s regional research officers, among others.
ENDS
SOURCE: NPP COMMUNICATIONS
DIRECTORATE
DEVELOPMENT IN FREEDOM
