Tema to be made Golden Gateway to West Africa - JAK

Tema, Dec. 2, GNA - Tema, the industrial nerve centre of the nation, is to be made the Golden Gateway to the West Africa Sub-Region if the New Patriotic Party (NPP) won Election 2004, President John Agyekum Kufuor declared at Tema on Wednesday.

Currently, Tema, which has the export-processing zone, is known as the Gateway to the Sub-Region.

To achieve this objective, however, President Kufuor called on all NPP members and sympathizers to vote massively for him and the Party's Parliamentary Candidates to facilitate good governance.

He was addressing a durbar of chiefs and NPP supporters at a rally during which he introduced Mr Ishmael Ashitey and Mr Abraham Ossei-Aidoo, incumbent Members of Parliament (MPs) for Tema East and Tema West Constituencies, respectively.

President Kufuor also inaugurated a 400-million cedi Golden Age Youth Centre at Community Four in the Tema East Constituency.

Mr Ashitey constructed the Centre from Mp's share of the District Assemblies' Common Fund (DACF) to train the youth in various vocations.

President Kufuor said under NPP's "Positive Change Chapter Two" a lot of developmental changes would take place and urged the people to vote for the candidates since they had performed creditably.

Earlier Mr Azure Sampane, Tema West constituency NPP Chairman, called on polling agents to be extra vigilant at all polling centres to avoid rigging and warned that they would be blamed for any lapses. He entreated the constituents to continue to show their loyalty to the Party by turning out in their numbers to vote for both the President and the Parliamentary Candidates.