… Events planned in all 16 regions

Story: Atta Kwaku BOADI

The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has taken steps to activate its 10th Anniversary program.  The anniversary will be marked with radio programs, press conferences on the party’s ideals, community forums, conferences, rallies and a national membership drive among others.  This was agreed during a National Committee meeting held on Wednesday 8th June.

The inaugural National Convention of the party was a massive event staged at the Accra Sports Stadium in February 2012.  It was a huge and unprecedented event that brought joy and hope to many Ghanaians that clean, practical ideas based politics had come to stay.  The convention was led by one of the main founders of the party Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom and featured other founders such as Mike Eghan Snr., Ladi Nylander, Mary Ankomah, Felix Ograh, Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond, Dr. Osei Assibey, Nana Ofori Owusu, Alhaji Kwame Murtala, Divine Nkrumah, Paa Kow Ackon, Victoria Aligboh, Berlinda Bulley, and many, many others.

The PPP believes that the agenda that it has focused on since its founding contains the essential solutions to Ghana’s problems and will lift the nation and its people into prosperity. 

Our focus unique in Ghanaian politics- job creation through competent, incorruptible leadership.  No political party in Ghana, not the NDC or the NPP has been so bold and clear about its focus.

As written in our Policy Document,  “… the PPP seeks the opportunity to implement an efficient Agenda for Accelerated Change that is built on Incorruptible Leadership, Education, Healthcare and Jobs.

Highlights of some of our unique non-negotiable policies are:

1.  Constitutional Reforms & Good Governance:  reform our constitution to strengthen parliament, elect district, municipal and metropolitan chief executives; create a strong independent public prosecutor to root out government corruption; and make Parliament truly independent by ensuring that a Member of Parliament cannot serve as a Minister of State at the same time.  Implement the Right to Information Bill to bring transparency and encourage accountability in government.

2.  Public Sector Reforms:  reform state institutions, make government efficient and raise revenue to be able to pay public servants well to motivate them to facilitate the work of the private sector and Ghanaian society in general.  Create a Ministry of Public Service to lead the task of continuous reform and modernisation of state institutions. Reduce the number of ministers of state to 40 and rely on professional civil and local servants to ensure efficient administration.  We will abolish the position of regional minister.

3.  Preventable Diseases:  ensure a cleaner environment free from preventable diseases like malaria, cholera, monococal meningitis and guinea worm. Just like countries in the Americas, Europe and elsewhere became malaria free, so can Ghana with the right leadership from the PPP.  Ensure emergency care throughout the country to save lives. Our focus will be in the area of prevention where education is the key.

4.  Compulsory & Universal Education:  provide Quality Education for Every Ghanaian Child. Standardize school facilities from kindergarten to Senior High, with libraries, toilets, classrooms, kitchen, housing for teachers, playground, etc.; and Ensure Free and Compulsory education in public schools from Kindergarten to Senior (including ICT training). We will deploy an “Education Police” to enforce the compulsory aspect of our policy. An integral part of this objective will be an objective to significantly increase vocational training so that all school leavers gain employable skills.

5.  Agriculture & Food Security:  provide a market to sustain our farmers and fishermen. We will use the state’s purchasing power to provide the assurance that the labor of our farmers and fishermen will not be in vain. Construct good roads that link farms to market centres to ensure that our farmers are able to transport their produce for sale easily, as one way of reducing poverty.  Address post harvest losses by reviewing specific crops and potential for processing, value addition, effective storage schemes etc.  Instead of the corruption infested political gimmicks like giving out outboard motors and premix fuel, introduce and implement policies that yield aquatic abundance. 

One way to provide ready market is to ensure that all basic schools on the school feeding program as well as Senior High Schools patronize strictly, made in Ghana commodities for cooking.

6.  Financing Energy:  implement solutions with a sense of urgency to meet domestic needs for industry and residential use. To enable us achieve this objective, we will provide tax incentives to enable development of alternative sources of fuel and power – bio fuels and solar. Aim to ensure that the contribution from renewable sources of energy reaches in a decade, a minimum of 10% of what we need.  Provide adequate funding to deal with generation, transmission and distribution challenges.

7.  Economic Infrastructure:  To accelerate job creation nationally, build an inter-region highway with the same high quality throughout the country to open up the country for investment and development. In the same way, implement with a sense of urgency plans to extend railways to the four corners of the country to facilitate the movement of goods and people.

8.  Sports:  a comprehensive sports programme to instill discipline and promote better health. The comprehensive sports programme will ensure that with government support, we begin to develop future world and Olympic champions. Our performance at successive Olympic Games have not been befitting of a country of our stature.

9.  Domestic Enterprise Development:  improve Ghana’s business climate to enable investment in job creation so that our people will stay at home to help develop the country and its economy. We will be relentless in providing support to Ghanaian industry and our farmers and fishermen using low interest loans, technical assistance, tax incentives and priority access to the Ghanaian market.

10.  Women’s Enterprise Development:  to train, encourage and promote the growth and development of women entrepreneurs in the country. This will include technical assistance, low interest loans and the setting aside of portions of government contracts to enterprises founded and managed by women.

11.  Technology:  ensure application of technology to enable the implementation of national objectives in areas such as national identification, drivers licensing, passports, criminal information systems; provide support to ICT entrepreneurs to make Ghana a hub for technology product development and innovation.