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22.01.2015 Politics

Akufo-Addo Calls for Election of DCEs and Assembly Men on Party Lines

By NPP UK
Akufo-Addo Calls for Election of DCEs and Assembly Men on Party Lines
22.01.2015 LISTEN

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, the NPP 2016 Presidential Candidate, presented his vision for transforming Ghana at an invitation to address a selected audience at Chatham House, the esteemed Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, this morning.

He spoke on the theme "Developing Ghana: Policies for Prosperity" before an audience comprising business leaders, diplomats, foreign relations and development experts, political and social commentators. His zeal, passion and advocacy for a transformed and prosperous Ghana, was compelling.

After his spectacular off-the-cuff delivery of his vision, which he stressed has been consistent because he truly believes in it as the only path way for Ghana's prosperity, the audience gave him a warm applause.

He concluded the 90-minute interaction by answering a question on what makes him believe he can be third time lucky, he said instinctively, "My own sense is that the Ghanaian people have come to trust me."

Speaking on Wednesday morning, Nana Akufo Addo in his submission traced Ghana's development and democratic journey to date and acknowledged that the "values and principles of democratic engagement continue to deepen in the country" describing the next critical task to be on how the programmes, players and institutions of the country can be synchronised to address the overarching issue of "raising rapidly the quality of life of the mass of our people."

He admitted that there were structural imbalances between Parliament and the Presidency, stressing, "that the performance of the legislature has not been spectacular." And, he blamed that on the constitutional framework that "makes the legislature second to the executive," saying, that the imbalance has to be addressed consensually and constitutionally.

He reiterated the need to strengthen the institutions that underpin our democracy, especially our executive, legislature and judiciary, to ensure that each plays their respective roles in building a strong democratic culture that ensures accountability, effective separation of powers, and guaranteeing respect for the rule of law.

He had kind words for the judiciary. "As a rule," he said, "Ghana's judiciary is considered as one of the most independent in Africa. But, a lot more must be done in terms of resources to strengthen its capacity and also the calibre of the people there."

Nana Akufo-Addo also used the occasion to again call for fundamental reforms of the nation's electoral system to restore public confidence. To him, if trust in the system is to be restored then the problems with the voters' register must be addressed head on. This means replacing the current register, which he argued was bloated and not a true reflection of the country's population eligible to be on the electoral roll.

For the NPP, he said, "Our interest is that we have elections in the future that are incident-free. We are not the ones who are going to disturb the governance of our country. On the contrary, our history has been one of leading in the struggle to consolidate our democracy," he said.

Nana Akufo-Addo said mobilisation of greater public participation in the governance process must be facilitated. He welcomed greater civil society engagement in the governance process but went further to show constitutional policy measures that , he believed, could assist in the process of greater participatory democracy, especially at the grassroots level.

The Presidential Candidate of the NPP took the opportunity to state his commitment to a radical shift in the status quo of the local government structure. He stressed the need to deepen participatory democracy at the local level with a move from non-partisan elections at the local level to a fully elected local government administration, including election of district chief executives, who will be fully accountable to the people.

"In my view, political parties must be free to openly sponsor candidates for District Assembly elections. Also, District Chief Executives, or Mayors, must be directly elected."

He argued that the situation where DCEs feel accountable to the president, the appointing authority, rather than the people at the local level is a democratic anomaly that must be addressed. He described that as a major check on the quality of local governance.

He bemoaned the current level of corruption in Ghana, describing it as widespread. "There is a strong stench of corruption in the country," he said. "I do not speak as an opposition politician, but as a citizen of the country."

He prescribed two ways of dealing with corruption: the personal example of leadership and the institutional capacity to deal with it. On the leadership level, he told the audience, including representatives of multinationals that for him any person in his party who wishes to make money would not be allowed to serve in public office but would rather be encouraged to go in the private sector where making money can be a legitimate objective.

"I have told people in my party - if you want to make money go to the private sector."

He said he has a personal commitment to the fight against corruption and has demonstrated that as Attorney-General under President J A Kufuor. "It was not my job to see to it that people were punished for corruption but to send cases to court to for the judiciary to rule on them."

He added, "Then, of course, is the institutional thing. Which in short means the willingness and capacity to enforce the law. Enforcing the laws is not just about prosecution, but, also about the laws that allow greater efficiency in the management of public resources and for greater value for money."

He said one law in point, which has been ignored under the "Mills-Mahama era" is the Public Procurement Act. He said his government would reverse the current culture "where sole sourcing of public procurement contracts is the norm rather than the exception."

He said the philosophy of his government would be to give Ghanaians value for their money because if that is done the problems of basic infrastructure could be quicker resolved and Ghana would not be in the situation where it is now spending more money to pay off interests on its loans than it uses for infrastructural development.

Nana Akufo-Addo said, for example, when the NPP left office in 2008, Ghana was using 7% of its GDP to develop infrastructure. "The figure is now 5%. We were expecting the oil and gas discovery to allow us to invest more money in developing our infrastructure. But the reverse has been the case," he lamented.

Nana Akufo-Addo said, "Ghana was poised for a major take off after 2008. Sadly, the Mills-Mahama era has seen a drastic drawback." He expressed the hope that with the right leadership Ghana can once again become the Black Star of Africa.

NPP UK Secretariat

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