Nana Addo Breaks Bread With Media

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Created on Saturday, 25 August 2012 00:00

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Nana Addo Breaks Bread With Media

25 August 2012

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) will today officially launch its political campaign for the December 7 general elections.   

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DAILY GUIDE gathered that the theme for the conference is, “There is hope for Ghana”.

The 2012 manifesto of the NPP titled, “People Matter, You Matter”, will be presented and adopted by over 4000 delegates that would converge on the Dome of the Accra International Conference Centre.

At the launch, Party Chairman Jake Obetsebi Lamptey and other party executives, including the campaign manager, will present their respective reports on the party’s preparation so far towards the December polls. These various reports are expected to be endorsed by delegates.

Immediately after this, a campaign rally will take place at Mantse Agbona in James Town, where all the 230 parliamentary candidates of the NPP will be outdoored.

The 2012 Presidential Candidate of the party, Nana Akufo-Addo and his running mate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, will also be outdoored officially at the event.

Ahead of the today’s event, Nana Akufo-Addo had an interaction with the media, restating his commitment to the freedom of expression when he broke bread with them in an evening garden encounter on Thursday.

He recalled the position of the legendary US President Thomas Jefferson, who said he preferred freedom of expression without a government, to a government without free press, to buttress the importance of free speech.

The NPP flag bearer encouraged the media to continue to support the cause of democracy through responsible performance and resisting the urge to muzzle the facts.

It was an evening full of fun and camaraderie between members of the inky fraternity and politicians from the ranks of the NPP.

The 2012 elections would be a close one, he said, quickly adding though that for him it would not be as close.

He prayed for the prevalence of a high plane on which there would be peaceful polls, equal opportunities and transparency.

“This is what Ghanaians demand,” he said, adding that the choices were clear, between an administration with failed policies and promises and one with a track record of performance and new policies.

He showered charitable words on the media for championing the cause of democracy in the country.

Nana Akufo Addo recalled his contribution to democracy, prominent among which was the repeal of the Criminal Libel Law.

Earlier, his campaign manager Boakye Agyarko had described the media, in a speech, as the gateway to the country’s sanity.

He acknowledged the important role of the media in sieving out the filth from the nation’s sanity.

“The media set the national standards and sieve the filth from our sanity. Be ye men and women of courage and stand against those who do wrong things,” he said.

Officials of the NPP expect a massive turnout at today’s rally which will set the tone for subsequent rallies across the country.

Meanwhile, the official launch of the NPP’s manifesto is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, the 29th of August at the National Theatre where the event will be open to the general public.

When asked for a sneak peek into the content of the NPP manifesto, Samuel Awuku, a deputy director of communications of the NPP, was tight-lipped, but hinted that the presentation made by the flagbearer of the party during the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) debate was a broad summary of the manifesto.

Key on Akufo-Addo’s agenda is education, where he is proposing a highly ambitious free basic level education policy.

The policy envisages an absolutely free education from the kindergarten level to the Senior High School (SHS) level in Ghana.

Even though his plans have been criticized for lacking a clear-cut financing plan, Nana Addo last Tuesday at the IEA debate explained how he would fund the project.

He also hinted on several other economic transformational policies that would also be embarked upon by the NPP.

According to him, the NPP would also embark on an aggressive housing policy. To start with, the NPP would continue the abandoned 5000 housing unit project that the Kufuor-led NPP government started before leaving office in 2008.

The NDC failed to continue that project.

The NPP programmes would include stabilizing the Ghanaian currency which is in a free fall against the major world currencies.

Also, he hinted that the NPP would embark on an aggressive industrialization drive and massive infrastructural development to give confidence to the private sector.

A.R. Gomda & Raphael Adeniran

Source: Daily Guide/Ghana