General Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) Justin Frimpong Kodua has affirmed the party’s commitment to support the government in addressing the current economic challenges facing the country.
These economic challenges, he indicated, would provide the NPP government another opportunity to do what it does best and get the country out of the difficulties and transform the Ghanaian economy.
Mr. Kodua pointed out just like the President John Kufuor administration inherited very difficult economic conditions in 2001 but showed mettle and overcame them, the Akufo-Addo-led NPP government also overcame crippling challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic when it had put the economy on a path of transformation.
“Ours is a history of turning things around when the country is in crisis”, Mr. Kodua stated at a media engagement yesterday to usher in NPP’s 30th Anniversary celebration.
“We urge party communicators to be tolerant of criticisms and embrace dissenting opinions as the party seeks to win a third consecutive general election.
“We appeal to all members, executives, loyalists and sympathisers of the NPP to therefore be guided by history and what happens to us when we are not united”, Mr. Kodua urged.
The government, he said, aims to reduce inflation to post-pandemic levels, keep the national debt at sustainable levels, create jobs and fund public infrastructure projects, particularly roads and schools.
According to him, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is determined to revive the economy in the next two and half years and urged government appointees and the party followers in general to put in extra efforts to aid the country’s economic renaissance.
Tradition
Mr. Kodua stated that the current adherents are proud of the NPP tradition and the role the party and its antecedents have played in making the rule of law, multiparty democracy, respect for individual liberties and the pursuit of a liberal economy the distinguishing factors of the political and economic landscape of Ghana.
Founders of the party, he said, had clear vision of the Ghana they wanted and were quite clear in how to achieve that vision.
“When dictatorships and one-party States became the fashion around the African continent and President Nkrumah turned Ghana into a one-party state, it was left to Dr. JB Danquah to become the lead and often, only open dissenting voice against Nkrumah’s dictatorship and acrimonious purge of political opponents”, he added.
According to the General Secretary, it all sounds almost unbelievable today to a generation of Ghanaians who have grown up in an era of Tilapia Cartoon and an atmosphere of multi-party democracy and freedom of speech and who take the open abuse of a president of the republic as a normal and regular phenomenon.
Demonstrations, he said, are things taking for granted, just as private radio stations and a free press.
“The NPP can say without any fear of contradiction that the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition made this state of affairs possible”, he stressed.
Democratic governance
The governing party, the Mr. Justin Kodua said, continued to champion democratic governance and all the freedoms that come with that system of governance and before the promulgation of the 1992 Constitution opposed Chairman Rawlings military government.
According to him, even after the 1992 general elections the NPP continued its advocacy for rule of law leading to the party’s leader Prof. Albert Adu Boahen authoring the Stolen Verdict to highlight irregularities that characterized the elections and advocated for several reforms for the country’s young democracy.
He stated the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition has a long history of enormous contributions to the rule of law, multi-party democracy, and socioeconomic development in Ghana and on the 30th anniversary of the party’s establishment, it is more than determined to harness the best faculties in the country in providing solutions to prevailing developmental challenges.
