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What is a manifesto?
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo is the flagbearer of the NPP.

What is a manifesto?

One word you will be hearing many times from now until December is, ‘Manifesto’.


This is because of the general election in December 7, 2020.

In case you are wondering what a manifesto is, it is just a simple document which has a list of policy ideas of a political party on a wide range of issues in great detail.

The key feature of a political manifesto is that it will usually say what the party’s policies are, as well as give some kind of explanation as to what each policy would achieve and why that would be a good thing for the people of the  country in order to persuade the voters to support it.

Manifestos usually cover a wide range of political issues, including the economy, health, education, welfare, jobs, housing, defence, the environment and foreign policy.

According to the Electoral Commission’s website, there are 27 political parties in the country but out of that number, only four have so far launched their manifestos.

They the New Patriotic Party (NPP), led by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo,  the National Democratic Congress (NDC), led by form President, John Dramani Mahama, the Liberal Party of Ghana, led by Mr Kofi Akpaloo and the Great Consolidated People’s Party (GCPP), led by Dr Henry Lartey.

The NPP manifesto listed the promises the  party made in 2016 and what it had been able to do on specific policies before it touched on what it would do if  voted into power again.

For instance, under education, the party said it would:

• Consolidate the implementation of the Free SHS and Free TVET programmes.
• Make sure no student who has obtained admission to a tertiary institution is denied access because they are unable to pay fees. It said it would provide all such students, with the exception
of teacher and nurse trainees who are paid allowances, an option to obtain a student loan.
• Improve the quality of education in 10,000 low-performing basic education
schools across all 260 districts and strengthen education sector equity and accountability
in Ghana.
• Reduce the number of out-of-school children in Ghana by providing a uniform identification
and tracking of every student.
• Complete the provision of free Wifi at all senior secondary schools and public tertiary institutions.
• Through the Zongo Development Fund, in collaboration with GETFUND, build 16 model
senior high schools in Zongo communities across the 16 regions of the country.

Under health, the party intends to :

• Bring health promotion and prevention as part of primary health care under the NHIS which will continue to be free for children, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups
• Construct six new regional hospitals in the six new regions
• Construct a Ghana Centre for Disease Control
• Build one new regional hospital for the Western Region
• Eliminate import duty on sanitary pads to improve health outcomes, particularly for girls.

Social Protection

On social protection the manifesto  said among others that the NPP Government, past and present, was the only party with a proven track record in designing and implementing social protection programmes which have provided the much needed support to the vulnerable and disadvantaged in Ghana.

From health insurance through school feeding to free SHS, “we have continuously demonstrated our credentials in building a fair and equitable society”, it said.

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