State Must Play Leading Role In Dev — CPP

The Convention People's Party (CPP) has called for the state to play a stronger role in the nation's economic and social development.

The party attributed the increased poverty and suffering in the country to the failure of the state to play its rightful role in national development and advised that the state should reverse this trend.

The Eastern Regional Chairman of the party, Nana Owusu-Sekyere, who stated this at a forum for the party at Koforidua, said “Those who doubt the importance of the state in economic and social development should look no farther than China today.

Indeed, all those free-market economies, such as the U.S. and U.K., have a strong state role. We see no reason why Ghana should be different”.

He said that the nation was at the cross-roads not being able to determine whether to continue on the path of low economic growth and social disintegration or rediscover and continue the great social and economic strides the CPP made between 1951 and 1966.

He portrayed the social situation as alarming and explained that due to the high unemployment rate in the country young men and even women had taken to violent crimes, while those arrested were either shot or lynched instead of bringing hope and opportunity to them.

The Eastern Regional chairman said education, which the CPP made accessible to every Ghanaian from the basic to the tertiary level irrespective of one's social status, had now become the preserve of a few people and that the irony of the situation was that most of those people who had benefited from the CPP's educational and other progressive social policies had turned their backs on the poor.

“This is not the kind of Ghana we envisioned when the CPP took us to independence in l957. We were capable and still are capable of doing better. The CPP is the only party that can rescue Ghana from the social injustices that are breeding despair and hopelessness across the land”, he stated.

He said the party still believed in the proclamation by Dr Nkrumah at independence that “the Black Man can handle his own affairs” because the fact that the country had experienced some setbacks along the way should not mean that what Dr Nkrumah said was wrong. “Give us the chance in 2008 and we'll prove the doubting Thomas's wrong”.

“We failed to live up to that declaration because we lost our way after 1966. Most of the industries built by the CPP as part of Ghana's march towards achieving those goals have been abandoned, while others have been sold to foreigners at give-away prices. They make the profits and ship them back to their countries while Ghanaians are left with the crumbs,” said Nana Owusu-Sekyere.

He said Ghanaians were craving for change and it was only the CPP that could provide the necessary change to deliver the people from the economic hardships and social deprivation, because a CPP government would play a dominant role in the national economic development and give equal opportunity and prosperity to all.

He said the ground was now fertile and the time was ripe for the CPP to reclaim power because Ghanaians were yearning for the administration of the party.

He appealed to all Nkrumaists to return to the CPP so that guided by the ideals of Nkrumaism, the party would be able to work together to reclaim that which rightly belonged to them.

“If our enemies scattered us against our will, we shouldn't remain scattered by our own will. Let us shame our enemies by coming together and working together to complete the business which the 1966 coup brought to an abrupt end and which is nation-building, social justice, and Pan-Africanism,” he added.

He said the CPP was not only concerned about Ghana but about the African continent and Africans in the Diaspora, because of the threats of imperialism and neo-colonialism that Osagyefo warned against at independence.

He said currently the continent was being threatened by the agents of global forces, which continued to stoke the flames of war in Africa so that they would take away its resources to develop their countries.

“I am appealing to those who continue to tell lies about Osagyefo and the CPP to stop now, for no nation can be built on a foundation of lies. We are suffering today because we have been lied to for so long about the record of achievements of the CPP and Osagyefo. Let the truth be told about the social, economic, and political progress that Osagyefo gave us,” Nana Owusu-Sekyere added.

Story By Donald Ato Dapatem