Be bold to tackle corruption born out of political patronage — Abu Sakara
The 2012 Presidential Candidate for the Convention Peoples’s Party (CPP), Dr Abu Sakara, has called on Ghanaians to be bold in tackling corruption.
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In a new year message to Ghanaians, Dr Sakara said they should be “bold to confront the rapacious lion of corruption born of political patronage, communal nepotism and collective greed’.’
He commended Ghanaians, both home and abroad, for their contributions to nation building in the past year and urged them to continue their efforts in the new year.
The message said it was a privilege and a duty to encourage all Ghanaians in their endeavours as they strive to build the nation in a year of significant trials and tribulations.
Horizon
The statement said it was even more important that Ghanaians looked to the horizon with hope for a new and improved condition.
The statement also pointed out that the past year had been fraught with an economy in distress, made worse by an energy crisis that had remained unsolved.
“These two forces have served to deepen unemployment and increase living costs to the extent where the middle class have suffered significant erosion in living,” the statement said.
Shopping malls
It said in spite of the emergence of shopping malls, the distressed economy had placed an even greater burden on ordinary workers.
The statement observed that these challenges were but symptoms of a fundamental flaw in strategy which relied on an unaided, fledgling private sector left alone to compete with giants on the global stage.
“We must, therefore, not simply wish for better things in the new year as children wish to Father Christmas but boldly take the fundamental step of the state playing a more aggressive and proactive role in fostering, supporting and strengthening initiatives by the private sector,” the statement said.
Productivity
It also said increased productivity could come from the private sector and the transformation by growth in the manufacturing sector could happen in this generation.
Transformation, the statement said, was not just quantitative growth but a qualitative change in the evolution of the economy and the state should not be apologetic in playing its role.
The message concluded by urging Ghanaians, especially the youth, to not despair even in the bleakest situation since there was hope for the country.
“We only need to hold fast to the values and principles that bound us at the inception of our beloved Ghana, which was ‘All for one and one for all’, in freedom and justice,” the statement added.