Press Release
PRESS STATEMENT BY DR. KOFI KONADU APRAKU
July 15, 2014
Accra, Ghana
GHANA IS ADRIFT
Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, fellow Ghanaians. I have just
filed my nomination papers to contest in the NPP primaries, and
eventually, for the presidency of our country.
While am humbled and deeply worried by the numerous intractable
and pressing problems facing our nation today and am confident
of our nation’s future prospects. The NDC and President Mahama’s
government have successfully bankrupted our economy and taken
our nation back to the era of the 1980s.
Today, like then, the daily depreciation of our cedis has been
accepted as the norm. The massive wholesale unemployment of our
people, especially the youth is considered inevitable, the twin
macroeconomic evils of high inflation and interest rates and the
missive unemployment of our people, especially the youth, are
considered inevitable and acceptable, because they are supposed
to be globalised. Yet the NDC ignores the fact that our next
door neighbor, Cote D’iviore has risen from the ashes of a
devastated civil war and is making significant progress under
the same global economic environment.
These macroeconomic ills augmented by the lowering of our credit
rating, diminishing external reserves and growing indebtedness
have conspired to destroy our domestic industry, reduced our
global competitiveness, and reduced our export volumes and
revenues. The excessive corruption and wasteful expenditures,
gross incompetence, mediocrity ineffective and indecisive
leadership, compounded by unreliable supplies of electricity
water, have rendered our nation unattractive to investors – both
foreign and domestic.
The problem of the NDC government is not that it doesn’t
understand the problems we face, the problem is that it lacks
the capacity, the decisiveness, the political will and the
strength of leadership to implement the numerous suggestions and
recommendations that have been proferred by the World Bank, the
international monetary Fund (IMF), the Senchi Forum, and several
individuals and organizations within and outside our country.
Ghanaians have not just had enough of NDC’s poor performance,
they have learned their lessons. And NDC must go in 2016.
Indeed, the silly joke doing the rounds in our country today is
that “the NDC know how to win election but not how to govern.
The NPP on the other hand, knows how to govern and not how to
win elections”.
Well, Well, ladies and Gentlemen, let the word go out to all
corners of our country, to our friends and foes alike, that the
NPP knows how to win election and is ready to come back to power
to restore growth, create employment for our people, rebuild and
expand our physical and economic infrastructures. We are ready
to expand our energy and water supply, continue to mechanize our
agriculture and provide incentives and support to the cocoa
sector, the business community, especially, the export sector,
and above all manage our national resources, especially our oil
revenues, with greater transparency and accountability.
NPP under my leadership will dismantle what some people have
referred to as the NDC rigging machine and ensure that the vote
of every citizen is properly credited during the election. and
quash the era of vote rigging. We will win the next election
because we will close our ranks and unify our party.
We will win the next election because we will engage in a clean
election; based on competing ideas and visions. We will win
because we will project a positive image to win more floating
voters to our party, we will win because we care about the
future of our country. But above all, we must win because
Ghanaians look up to us for a positive change that will bring
greater prosperity to them.
Ladies and Gentlemen, NPP does not have any option but to win
the next election. Ladies and Gentlemen; for the NPP it is time
to win. For Ghana it is time to make progress.
PRESS STATEMENT BY DR. KOFI KONADU APRAKU
July 15, 2014
Accra, Ghana
