Sunyani, Sept 11, GNA - Captain Nkrabea Effah-Dartey (RTD)), the Member of Parliament for Berekum, has said a strong local government, maintenance of law and order as well as human resource development would be his priority to ensure the country's rapid development. He said no country could progress without a sound and quality education, discipline and effective participation in decision making at the local level.

Capt Effah-Dartey, who is vying to become NPP's flagbearer in the 2008 elections, was speaking at a symposium and handing over ceremony for the Sunyani Polytechnic branch of the Tertiary Students Confederacy of NPP (TESCON) in Sunyani.

It was on the theme, "The prospects of NPP in election 2008". The MP said quality education was the basis of national development and there was the need to harness and transform it.

He reiterated that TESCON was the heartbeat of the party and urged members to be wary of insults, outright lies and unfounded allegations peddled by some politicians against the party.

"Our party is not made up of angels or saints and we are faced with problems as human beings", he said.

Capt Effah-Dartey said the basis of every democracy was competition "and that is why the party has about 15 candidates vying for the flagbearership" and called on delegates to rally solidly behind him and vote for him at the party's national congress. Mr Enoch Adjei-Antwi, the incoming president of the branch, paid tribute to past executives of the confederacy for contributing to its growth.

He said in spite of the numerous achievements that the branch had made, it still had problems in mobilizing resources to run programmes. Mr Adjei-Antwi stressed the need for the party hierarchy to give adequate financial assistance to the confederacy to enable it to explain government policies and programmes to the people to ensure a landslide victory in the 2008 general election.