'CPP will improve business climate'

Frontpage, July 23, 2008
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah & Maud A. Koranteng
THE Convention People’s Party (CPP) yesterday launched its manifesto for the 2008 elections, with a promise to improve Ghana’s business climate by ensuring an investment in job creation to encourage Ghanaians to stay at home to develop the country.
The creation of jobs forms part of actions the party has outlined under a 10-point agenda intended to enable Ghanaians to feel the changes that will take place under a CPP government.
Launching the 96-page manifesto, code-named “New Dawn, New Vision”, the flag bearer of the party, Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, said a CPP government led by him would support Ghanaian industries, farmers and fishermen with low-interest loans, technical assistance, tax incentives and priority access to the Ghanaian market.
He said under the 10-point agenda, the party would also create a just and disciplined society, with a passion for excellence, to ensure the attainment of per capita income of at least $5,000 and work to move the country progressively from being a Third World country to a First World one.
“The CPP administration will use government’s purchasing power to ensure that we eat what we grow and use what we produce in Ghana,” he said, adding that efforts would be made to implement solutions with a sense of urgency to meet the country’s domestic needs for industry.
He added that the party also intended to sponsor changes in the 1992 Constitution to abolish the provision that allowed Ministers of State to also serve as Members of Parliament (MPs).
Dr Nduom was confident that the CPP could win the December elections, explaining that the party had put measures in place to recruit new members through a national movement led by young men and women across the country.
He stated that the party’s most enthusiastic members were young men and women who had discovered the CPP tradition and wanted to help to make it a successful party for the 21st century.
Dr Nduom said Ghanaians wanted an alternative after their experience with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), adding, “We are organising a united, strengthened CPP to be the alternative and win the 2008 elections. A vote for the CPP this year is the vote that will put ‘Edwumawura’ back to the Flagstaff House.”
He said he considered himself a team builder and unifier, both in business and politics, saying that Ghanaians were tired of divisive politics.
He stated that his experience as a CPP person in an NPP administration had given him the strength and the ability to reach out to members of other political parties to find a common ground in solving national issues.
“I am convinced that I have an effective approach to a government that will move us speedily out of the Third World to the First World. This includes finding an effective way to harness the experience, expertise, work habits and financial strengths of Ghanaians abroad for the benefit of the country,” he said.
He explained that in 1957, there was excitement, enthusiasm, a high spirit of patriotism and a feeling of “we are in control of our own destiny” as Ghanaians basked in the glory of living in a new independent country.
Dr Nduom said, however, that in 2008, Ghanaians were crying for “something new, something different, something inspiring and a leadership of the people that will break the back of poverty and lead to prosperity for all”.
“This is the new dawn that the CPP, now reborn, is offering and in our manifesto is a vision that is refreshing and promises the same sense of urgency to national development that our great party brought to the noble task of achieving our independence from colonial power,” he said.
The Leader of the Manifesto Team of the party, Dr Nii Moi Thompson, said the policy document reflected the views and intentions of the CPP on various developmental issues of domestic and international importance.
The manifesto has been grouped under four broad areas, namely, Social Policy, Economic Policy, Responsive Governance and International Relations.
With these policy areas, the party has identified three short-term priority areas that it will address immediately after it has been re-elected into office.
These include public safety, the provision of essential social services such as water, electricity and sanitation and job creation, with the launch of what it calls the Ghana Emergency Employment Programme (GEEP), which is aimed primarily at the youth.
Besides the 96-page manifesto is a 70-page short version which has been simplified for the understanding of the ordinary Ghanaian.
The Chairman of the party’s Political Committee, Dr Kwaku Osafo, said the clamour for the manifestos of parties contesting the 2008 elections was a manifestation of civic awareness that had been created among Ghanaian voters.
He said the CPP was looking forward to campaigns based on issues, coupled with implementable promises, and called on all its supporters to rally behind Dr Nduom to clinch a “one-touch victory”.
The National Chairman of the party, Mr Ladi Nylander, noted that the sense of urgency that the CPP brought to national development in the 1950s and early 60s was missing.
He said it was, therefore, time for the CPP to restore that, explaining that the party’s 2008 manifesto had provided answers to the cries of the people for a new dawn and a new vision in the country.
“We believe that the state has the moral duty to use its power to promote high rates of economic growth and ensure that the wealth from that growth is shared equitably among Ghanaians,” he said.