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Last week, June 29, 2018, our country suffered an unexpected and painful loss – the sudden departure of the outgoing Vice President of the Republic, His Excellency Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur, Vice President for four and a half years, under the direction of His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama
Our nation observed five days of national mourning. Official condolence books were opened at the Accra International Conference Center
and in our missions around the world, and the flags were lowered to half mast. He will receive, on July 27, a funeral and burial, as befits a former vice-president, especially one who has served his nation with dignity and integrity. I have already presented, in your name and in my personal name, our sincere condolences to his widow, his children, his family, the National Democratic Congress and President Mahama. We already had a minute of silence in his memory. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful leave the rest and remain in the bosom of the Lord until the last day of the resurrection when we will all meet again.
The last time we met in 2014 in Tamale to choose our National Officers, we were in opposition, having lost the 2008 and 2012 elections. It was therefore imperative that we elect officers who would unify the party, and mobilize all his talents and energies to lead us to the capital victory of 2016. Unfortunately, this did not happen. Our party was involved in a series of unnecessary conflicts that undermined Party coherence. Fortunately for us, we have benefited from the Akan saying that the family that does not have elders is a family to be pitied. The Council of Elders, under the intrepid leadership of the veteran nationalist and statesman, CK Tedam intervened in the proceedings and initiated the process that led to the suspension of three senior elected national officials and one Handful of others for anti-party activities. This decision saved our party and kept alive our chances of victory. We owe the Council of Wise Men, especially its leader, C.K. Tedam, a great debt of gratitude for their action, an action whose validity, when disputed, was upheld by the High Court of Accra.
We are also deeply grateful to the national officers who took on the responsibility of leading our Party under these difficult circumstances. Despite the constant taunts of our opponents – "how can they handle Ghana when they can not run their own business?" How can a divided party govern Ghana? "- these were the constant themes of John Mahama and the NDC campaign – they got down to the task, kept their focus, promoted unity between us and contributed to a historic victory a victory that brought us back to power to give us the opportunity implement our ancestral transformation and development program, and we thank them for their service to the Party and the Nation, and to all of our outgoing national leaders, Ellembele Blay Freddie Blay, Frederic Fredua Antoh, John Boadu, Sammi Awuku, Otiko Afisa Djaba, Kwabena Abankwah Yeboah and Kamal Deen Abdulai, I say a great ayekoo Well done Your names are written in golden letters in the annals of our Party, and I will never cease to f elect for your brave defense the interests of the NPP in its moment of peril.
The events that occurred in Tamale underlie the crucial importance of choosing the right people to manage our affairs for the future, that is, for the next four years. The people we will be electing today will have the difficult task of organizing our party for the 2020 elections in two years time. It's a huge challenge and we need the right people to deal with it. Let me repeat a few words of my message to the Conference: We must elect officers whose main objectives will be to unify the party, strengthen its base and apparatus, work hand in hand with the government and to ensure governance to bring progress and prosperity to all our peoples. We must ensure that post-Tamale events never happen again. We must maintain and safeguard the achievements of 2016 by electing the right people to do so.
What have we done in the past 18 months with this power that we so pbadionately sought, and that the Almighty was so courteous? grant us, with the support of the Ghanaian people? Basically, four things.
First, the economy had to work again. This was not the case when we came to power. 3.6% of GDP growth rate for 2016 – the lowest in two decades – which was the completion of the last year of the Mahama government, including an IMF bailout program. Because of the actions we have taken, we have had a GDP growth rate of 8.5% in the first year of our mandate, and there is every reason to believe that we will repeat it this year. Indeed, the IMF says we could have the fastest economic growth in the world this year, and our prospects for positive growth are good. We have reduced the unsustainable budget deficit from 9.3% to Mahama last year to 6% in 2017. We will do it even lower this year. The inflation rate has improved by 15.4% – we are now in single digits. The cedi is a more stable currency, despite its recent challenges. We started to restructure our debt to give us more tax room. I know some people think that these numbers do not make sense. They are wrong. The numbers indicate a growing and strong macro-economy. Without that, we can not ensure prosperity. Getting us out of the deep hole where the Mahama government has plunged our country has never been easy, but we have to do it. We must be disciplined in the management of our public finances, otherwise our aspirations for a better future will remain just – aspiration, not reality.
Our economy is on a good track, and that will mean that when we finish With the IMF program this year, our economy will be stronger than the one we inherited. We must thank the members of our excellent management team for that. Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, President, Senior Minister Yaw Osafo Maafo, Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Trade and Industry Alan Kyerematen, Minister of Energy Boakye Agayrko and the Minister of Agriculture Owusu Afriyie Akoto. to turn our economy. I know that things are still not easy, but if we stay true to the path, we will soon see the light at the end of the tunnel. Let's stay resolved. We will ensure prosperity.
Second, as we work to rebuild our economy, we have also delivered some of our key promises to the people of Ghana. Skeptics and opponents have been ashamed – Free SHS is now a reality. The last school year, ninety thousand young boys and girls entered the upper secondary school the previous year because of the policy. This year, the figure will double to one hundred and eighty thousand, and to take care of this additional population, we will recruit more than eight thousand more teachers. We will ensure that every young Ghanaian child, no matter where he is born, regardless of his parents' financial situation, has access to a minimum of quality secondary education. We have doubled the Capitation grant. We have developed the school feeding program. We need an educated workforce to build Ghanaian prosperity of the 21st century. We have reinstated the allocations for teachers and trainee nurses. We have relaunched the national health insurance plan. Much of the debt that strangled it was paid for by judicious management, and the card became significant again, as service providers are now paid regularly. We have stabilized the electricity supply, and we have now made the duod a thing of the past, and, in the process, we have significantly reduced electricity rates. We have abolished many nuisance taxes so that small businesses can breathe again. We have put in place the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NNEP) to support young entrepreneurs and their start-ups. We developed the LEAP program. We have increased the share of the District Assembly Common Trust going to people with disabilities. We started reviving our agriculture with the planting program for food and employment. Last year, two hundred thousand small farmers participated in the program, which provided them with improved and subsidized seeds and fertilizers, as well as previously non-existent extension agents. This resulted in an increase in maize production from 1.9 tonnes per hectare in 2016 to 3 tonnes per hectare in 2017; an increase in rice production from 2.7 metric tons per hectare in 2016 to 4 metric tons per hectare in 2017; an increase in soybean production from 1.2 metric tonnes per hectare in 2016 to 2.5 metric tonnes per hectare in 2017; and an increase in sorghum production from 0.8 metric tons per hectare in 2016 to 1.8 metric tons per hectare in 2017. This year, the program will be extended to five hundred thousand farmers. Our target is one million farmers by the end of the four year term. We will change the face of Ghanaian agriculture. We have finally established the Development Authorities and the Zongo Development Fund to address the basic infrastructure issues. We are ready to deploy the 1-District-1-Factory initiative, and construction has begun in parts of the northern areas of the 1-Village-1-Dam project. The revitalization of our rail network is well underway and we are about to witness major road developments. The Corps of Builders of the nation, with a strength of one hundred thousand men, was launched to fight the unemployment of graduates. To ensure that our security personnel are not excluded from this vast program of social and economic reform, we have increased the peacekeeping allocation from $ 30 to $ 35. The digitization and formalization of the economy began in earnest. And all this has been done in 18 months. Four and a half years of Mahama government have been deprived of any such achievement
We focus these interventions on the ordinary Ghanaian, because we firmly believe that economic growth must be generalized if it is to be meaningful. And what do all these interventions mean in real terms – they mean that the government has provided relief of some 4.6 billion GH for the improvement of ordinary Ghanaian. It is money in their pockets. The nuclear power station will never be a party to any particular or acquired interests. We are, and will always remain, for the entire Ghanaian people.
The third aspect of our concentration over the last 18 months has been to improve the structure of our governance. We have begun to take steps towards the radical reform of local government – the commitment to bring complete democracy to local government is underway. We have scheduled the referendum to remove the clause removed from Article 55 of the Constitution to allow the direct popular election of the heads of metropolitan, municipal and district bodies to coincide, for cost reasons, with the elections next year. We are in the midst of a regional reorganization to respond to the popular demand for new regions to bring governance closer to the doors of the people. The Brobbey Commission has completed and submitted its work as well as their recommendations. The recommendations are being studied by this outstanding minister, Hon. Dan Kwaku Botwe, Okere MP, before referring to the Electoral Commission to conduct the relevant referendums in order to solicit the popular verdicts of the affected peoples. Reforms in the procurement process to move from exclusive sourcing to more competitive bid calls have allowed the Public Exchequer to save nearly 1 billion GGH. Last year. We have seen greater accountability of public servants. Allegations of corruption and / or misconduct against the two Chiefs of Staff of the Presidency, against the appointed Minister of Energy, against the Minister of Trade and Industry in the bribery scandal, against the Upper West suspended Regional Minister, were investigated by independent bodies, namely the police or Parliament, and were found to be unfounded and without merit. This is the reason why I lifted the suspension against the regional minister of the Upper West, and brought him back to his office. Yesterday, upon my return from the state visit to South Africa, I received the police report on the visa scandal in Australia, which exonerated the suspended deputy minister of youth and sports any complicity in fraud. I will suspend his suspension on Monday, and return him to the office. I will maintain this approach throughout my term. The same principle of accountability motivated the government's decision to request a police investigation into the conduct of the president of the Ghana Football Association, as revealed in the now-famous documentary Anas Aremeyaw Anan number 12, and to begin the proceedings for the dissolution of the GAF to create the foundation to clean up the football administration in our country. One of the most important developments in strengthening the architecture of our anti-corruption system was the creation, by an Act of Parliament, of the Special Prosecutor's Office, an independent body of the executive branch charged with of all the officials, past and present. , responsible for their management of public funds. The first occupant of this office is a reputable anti-corruption crusader, whose independence of mind and sense of integrity have been well recognized. I am confident that he will do his duty without fear or favor, without malice or malice.
Respect for due process and constitutionality led me to discharge myself from the obligation to follow up on the recommendations of the constitutional body that investigated petitions against him. former President of the Electoral Commission and his two deputies. I acted, according to the guidelines of the Constitution, without malice or premeditation. And all who know the genesis of this sad affair will recognize the truth of my statement. But, I am aware that the professional critics and those who still can not adapt to the expression of the popular will of December 7, 2016 will continue to weigh on all the nerves to find a case, where it there is none. I will continue to do my duty and leave their effusions to the verdict of history
. I've made an important decision that, I know, has caused a lot of anxiety among many of you. And that's the decision against galamsey. I said at my inauguration that the protection of the environment would be one of my most solemn undertakings. That's what I meant. I have said and will continue to say that mining is an essential feature of our economic life. We have always operated here in Ghana. Akufo-Addo can not stop the mining activity. What he can do, and try to do, is to put in place measures that will ensure, like our ancestors and our ancestors, that mining does not destroy our landscape and does not pollute not our water plans. Already some of our rivers are recovering some of their purity. The road map for the lifting of the embargo will be published in due course and hopefully the rules and regulations that it will contain will ensure that we do not go back to the bad old days. We work not only for ourselves, but also for our posterity.
Finally, during this period, at the international level, I visited all ECOWAS countries, except Guinea Bissau, to deepen and strengthen our bilateral relations. -operation with them. We have been active in ECOWAS and we play our role constructively, in the quartet of nations, in the processes leading to the adoption of a single currency for the ECOWAS Community. By 2020. When the call to duty arrived, we were part of the ECOWAS peacekeeping mission that guaranteed peace in that country, following the ouster, in the urns, former president Yahaya Jammeh. I was nominated by ECOWAS, co-mediator, with the Guinean President, His Excellency Prof. Alpha Conde, in the efforts to solve the Togolese political crisis. Your President is co-chair of the Eminent Persons Advocates Group for the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and has also been named the AU Champion for Gender. We have been very active in the affairs of the Commonwealth and, indeed, at the last meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government in London, your President had the honor to propose the toast, at the official banquet of Buckingham Palace , to Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, head of the Commonwealth. Yesterday, I returned from a state visit to South Africa, the first of a foreign leader in this important country, under the chairmanship of Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, the new president of the United States. South Africa since February this year. We have strategic partnerships with our neighbor, Côte d 'Ivoire, and with South Africa. Last year, we received several world leaders, reflecting the growing reputation of our country.
As you can see, we have been very busy in the last 18 months. And, even if we have not solved all the collective problems of the country, we are working hard to ensure the rebirth of our nation. It is obvious that Ghana's fate is safe in our hands. Let us work to ensure that we stay in office long enough to make the social and economic transformation of our nation that our people need. We can and will do it. I dare say that we are the only ones who can do it, as long as we remain united and focused on the big picture and consider ourselves primarily instruments of service to the people of Ghana. Thus, "Building a stronger party, bringing prosperity to Ghanaians" is a very appropriate theme. We will develop our nation in freedom.
Let me conclude on a note of caution. The harmonious relationship between MPs, MMDCEs and constituency leaders is very important to the success of our project. I said it and I repeat it here. I am the captain of the boat and I will not allow anyone to tilt or capsize it. The boat will sail in a safe harbor, no curve, no bend.
Thank you for giving me the time to speak. Let's have a successful conference and elect the right people to run our business.
May God bless us all and the New Patriotic Party, and may God bless our homeland Ghana and make it great and strong.
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