Ghana will attain middle-income status — President

President J.A. Kufuor has said the vision of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is to make Ghana attain a middle-income status by 2015.
Speaking at the launch of the Greater Accra Regional campaign of the party at Madina Zongo Junction in Accra on Sunday, he said the NPP government had managed and prepared the economy towards attaining a middle-income status.
After observing a minute’s silence in memory of the late Finance Minister, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, the President urged the electorate to vote for the NPP flag bearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to transform the dream envisioned by the NPP into reality.
He said Nana Akufo-Addo had been touring the whole country, not just for the sake of gaining power but to work to totally transform and build the economy.
The President said this year’s elections were not among vice-presidential aspirants and wondered why the National Democratic Congress (NDC) vice-presidential aspirant, Mr John Dramani Mahama, was virtually doing all the campaigning for the party.
He said the elections were among presidential candidates who had the strength to campaign throughout the length and breadth of the country and work for the nation.
President Kufuor said this year’s change of power would be a transfer of power from the Kufour administration to Nana Akufo-Addo’s and urged Ghanaians to hand over the presidential mantle to the NPP flag bearer for him to move the country forward.
He recalled that before coming into office, the NPP had predicted that it was going to strike oil when given the mandate, noting that truly it had been able to do that, with the help of God, whom he said had blessed the country so much.
The NPP flag bearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, said he believed Ghanaians wanted to move forward, instead of backwards, as some people were seeking to do.
He said Ghana had always had oil but it was the NPP government which, with commitment, perseverance and prudent policies, had been able to strike it in commercial quantities and noted that it was not the oil alone that was going to bring money into the Ghanaian economy but also the industries and factories that would be established to create jobs for Ghanaians to earn good salaries.
Nana Akufo-Addo said he decided to do politics to use his God-given abilities for the benefit of Ghanaians.
He said the country was moving forward as a result of the good policies implemented by President Kufuor's administration.
The NPP flag bearer said education was the key to the country's developmental challenges and believed that every child of school age in Ghana deserved an opportunity to go to school, with money not been a stumbling block.
He said because of the prudent policies undertaken by the late Finance Minister, it was possible for the NPP government to provide free basic and secondary school education for Ghanaian children of school age, contrary to the assumption by the opposition party that that promise was not feasible.
He called for peaceful elections, come December 7, and urged all Ghanaians to compromise with the Electoral Commission to ensure that no disturbances occurred during and after the elections.
"We have to prove to the world that there is a country in Africa that can hold peaceful elections," he stated, and urged Ghanaians not to resort to tribal politics but politics of unity and solidarity.
The NPP parliamentary aspirant for Madina-Abokobi, Mr Baba Zakaria, advised the electorate not to consider elections as an opportunity to insult their opponents but recognise the importance of freedom of speech and not retaliate when even provoked.
Mr Zakaria called on the Muslim and the Christian communities to go out in their numbers and vote for him and Nana Akufo-Addo for them to transform the economy by raising the standard of living of ordinary Ghanaians.
He said a recent world bank report indicated that "Ghana has not been affected by the global banking crisis and it will not be affected in any way if we continue with the prudent policies the government has been pursuing".