Akufo-Addo Outlines Vision At Debate

Touching on agriculture, he expressed fear that if care was not taken, the country would suffer the Dutch Disease because already the agriculture sector had started recorded a reduction in contribution to Gross Domestic Product from 8.7 per cent in 2008 to less than one per cent in 2011.

He said the next NPP government would give priority support to farmers to encourage increase in production of maize, cocoa, cashew nut, shea nut as well as offer ready markets for such produce as a means to encourage their production.

On unemployment, Nana Akufo-Addo proposed a short to medium term and a long term solution. With the short term, he said his administration would invest heavily in re-afforestation and other labour intensive construction, including the building of a number of structures for the free Senior High School policy.

With the long-term solution, Nana Addo said investments would be made in the provision of infrastructure and other assistance to encourage the establishment of industries, expansion in the tourism and other industries.

Responding to the issue of closing the funding gap in education, his solution, he said, was ensuring value for money in the execution of projects in the sector, and expressed worry that a six-classroom block that cost GH¢85,000 during the Kufuor era was now hovering around GH¢280,000 and added that with the strict adherence to the principles of value for money and other resources from the energy sector, more resources would be tapped to close the gap.

He was of the view that the country could not continue to allow over 600,000 junior high school graduates to miss out on the education ladder and said unlike the NDC that prioritised payment of judgment debts to the tune of GH¢850,000, his administration would concentrate on creating access for the huge number of students in the SHS.

Sharing his view on how to end the current load shedding in the electricity supply sector, Nana Akufo-Addo indicated that some installed capacities that were brought in by the Kufuor administration, which had been abandoned, would be brought on stream while action would also be expedited on the gas production which the current government had been allowing to be pumped back into the ground because of lack of infrastructure to utilise the gas for electricity generation.

The NPP presidential candidate quoted the Health Minister as saying that the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was in trouble and needed immediate action to save it from collapse and added that the scheme was in debt of GH¢300,000, an equivalent of what the scheme had in excess during the NPP era.

He also spoke of a decline in the membership of the scheme from well over nine million to eight million and stated his commitment to revive the confidence of the people in the health insurance scheme.

He took a swipe at President John Mahama for leading an expensive scheme that cost GH¢105,000 to train each Ghanaian doctor in Cuba and reminded the gathering that the Ghana Medical Association had insisted that they could train such doctors at a cost of GH¢30,000 each.

Sharing his position on national debt sustainability, the NPP presidential candidate said the NPP left government with a total national debt of GH¢9 billion but this had been skyrocketed to GH¢28 billion and added that but for the rebasing of the economy, Ghana would been on the verge of becoming a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) again.

His views on the private sector was that he would ensure confidence in the sector, while at the same time provide the actors with technical and financial support and stated that the pharmaceutical industry would be given special attention to be a leader in the West Africa sub-region.

Answering a question pertaining to the flouting of the nation’s laws on retail trade by foreign nation, his take was that the laws of the country which prohibited them from participating in the trade must be enforced to the letter.

Nana Akufo-Addo said the country’s economic growth of 14 per cent last year with oil from the 2008 figure of 8.7 without oil was unsustainable and expressed his willingness to grow other sectors of the economy such as the agriculture and industry to contribute their quota to the growth.

He said reports from the Bank of Ghana indicated that there was waning confidence in the business sector and said an Akufo-Addo administration would reverse the trend.

Story: Donald Ato Dapatem/Daily Graphic