CPP WILL RESCUE OUR NATION FROM CORRUPTION, POVERTY AND SHAME

Distinguished guests, our friends in the media, ladies and gentlemen, Comrades,

We are here to celebrate the 105th Anniversary of the birth of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, The African of the Millennium who lit the flame of the African liberation struggle and is also the father and founder of our nation and our great Party- the Convention People's Party.

We also take the opportunity of this day to honour his legacy with our promise and pledge to the nation that the CPP the party he founded is on a resurgence to govern this country to prosperity in accordance with his development policy guidelines of Nkrumaism.

We make this promise to the nation because the hardships Ghanaian are enduring as result of the failures of misguided development policy prescriptions in the past 32 years has been catastrophic. Ghana has sunk to the depths of deprivation and hopelessness. We are where we are today because we have abandoned the vision and plans of Nkrumah.

Today, our country, the first to break the bondage of exploitative colonial rule due to our conviction that we black people have the capacity to govern our countries for the benefit of ourpeople, is now begging for a bail out to save us from our economic crisis from those same forces that colonised us.

There can be no doubt that our nation has lost her sense of mission and vision. The challenge of the CPP, the Party that founded this nation, is to restore our vision of economic independence so we can create wealth for our people, eliminate poverty, disease and hunger,and live in dignity and prosperity.

Only a genuine Nkrumaist government can achieve this prosperity for Ghana. It is the task, responsibility and duty of CPP members to make this happen. No one else is going to do so.

What the nation needs is a political force and government that can be trusted, capable of harnessing the patriotism of Ghanaians and has the wherewithal to use such to battle indiscipline and corruption as well as a vehicle for national development.

Comrades, fellow Ghanaians, today marks a new phase in our progress. To meet thechallenge of our Party calls for self-mobilisation and commitment from all of us. We should reckon that organising our polling station and electoral area members and political education is the most important assignment in re-building and revitalising our Party.

The Party at the constituency level should be strengthened and organised on the solid foundation of well-organised polling station and electoral areas that should also act as cells for Party political education.

Our Central Committee, in accordance with our constitution, has therefore directed that the polling station and electoral areas should serve as the electoral college for the election of constituency executives.

No constituency executive committee would be deemed to have been properly elected if it is not elected by registered members of polling stations and electoral areas within the constituency.

I therefore call on members of our Party and the good people of our country who demand national dignity and prosperity to register on the Membership Management System database of our Party that is now in progress on the sidelines. It is a system that puts us amongst the most modern in the world.

The CPP is truly modernised.

Comrades, organising for political power needs discipline and resources, and therefore I call on every member to contribute to the Party. Paying membership dues is therefore the responsibility of every member. Paying our dues affirms ownership, commitment and dedication to the cause of the Party. We should in addition to this ensure that wherever two or three are gathered in the name of the CPP there shall be silver collection.

Comrades and friends, factions exist within political parties. Positive factionalism is where all factions genuinely and transparently serve the common party objective to win political power. Negative factionalism however is where a faction is detached from the party mainstream, works for its competitors and generally undermines the party objective to win political power. In our party there should only be a CPP/CPP faction. We cannot entertain factions within the CPP that are pro another party.

Comrades, we should commit and perform our duty to our Party to build and strengthen the CPP/CPP faction. We should leave no sitting space or standing room for those who seek to trade off our political objectives for crumbs from the table of our political opponents for their personal gains. Our dedication and loyalty to the cause of our Party should be unquestionable because our political objective to win political power is not negotiable

Unity of Nkrumaist forces in the struggle for political power is most desirable. But the reality and unfortunate fact is that there are Nkrumaists and there are pretend or fake Nkrumaists.

Nkrumaism is a way of interpreting the world and using that interpretation to change the worldfor the better, it is not about slogans or posturing. We are in the CPP because we want to change Ghana with that firm conviction and understanding.

Experience has shown us that some so-called Nkrumaists lend their support to other political parties and in some instances openly collaborate with them in the pursuit of economic, commercial and financial policies that oppress the poor and vulnerable in our society. Others pursue economic development policies that either deviate from or contradict Nkrumaist development policy guidelines and yet some they call themselves Nkrumaists.

Let us be clear. The CPP will welcome transparent unitary efforts by genuine Nkrumaists working for economic transformation and implementing people-centred policies.

It is a national disgrace that after 50 years of independence, we do not manufacture most of our needs but have become a consumptive economy with endemic trade deficits and an ever depreciating currency. This is in spite of the fact that we are blessed with quality human resource delivered by the educational policy and programmes of the CPP government of the First Republic.

The CPP government developed our rich natural resources as raw materials for the manufacturing industries the government established. These productive investments created jobs in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors for the youth of our country. The hasty and unregulated divestiture of these investments in a crony privatisation policy implemented by successive governments in disregard of their potential for our economic transformation is one of the causes of current mass youth unemployment.

The poverty of our country is inexcusable. It can however be explained as the result of corruption and the failure by governments of the past 32 years to plan for the continuous transformation of the colonial economy we inherited to a modern industrialised country as South Korea, India and Malaysia have demonstrated.

Comrades, fellow Ghanaians, the yet to be accomplished mission of the CPP, in line with Nkrumah's development policy objectives for our country, is for us to break free from unproductivity, corruption and dependency. Our country shall prevail and surmount her development challenges under a CPP government.

We will keep the fire of Nkrumaism burning and we will light a new fire of change that cannot be quenched. We should do it again for our children and our children's children. SANKOFA CPP. STAND UP WITH CPP, IT'S TIME.

Long live Ghana!
Long live the CPP!
Forward Ever!

Thank you all.

Samia Yaba Nkrumah
CPP Chair and Leader
www.conventionpeoplesparty.org