As election 2008 in Ghana nears, the battle to capture the hearts and minds of Ghanaians rages on largely between CPP, NPP & NDC both at home and internationally. Panelists and contributors from the three parties are slugging it out on radio, TV and in the media generally.

In their weekly meet at the studios of HotDigital Radio, the three parties debated many of the issues of recent days including the report that President John Kufuor had called Ghanaians lazy, and the recent promise by Nana Akuffo Addo to establish at least one factory in each district under his presidency.

On the President calling Ghanaians Lazy the CPP‘s UK and Ireland Chairman Nii Armah Akomfrah said – “this is typical of the NPP and their tradition, they deny ordinary Ghanaians opportunity and then turn round and disrespect them. They are no friend of the poor “.

On Nana Akuffo Addo promise Mr Akomfrah said “ promises from Nana Akuffo Addo and the NPP gets more fanciful by the day , and it was thus important to assess these promises against their record” The CPP Chairman noted that “ every party now understands what the CPP has always said , that Ghana needs to move from a raw material country to exporting processed value adding products, but the reality under the NPP is that they had opposed the CPP’s Industrialisation policies, and in the last 7 years under NPP rule the manufacturing sector’s share of the business credit has fallen by 50% along with a decline in the sectors share of economic output from 9.02% to 8.1%.” He added that “ How can Nana Akuffo Addo now offer to build a factory in every region as part of industrialising the country when under their watch Ghana has been de-industrialised.

Industrialisation has been at the heart of every CPP Development Plan and manifesto since 1951, Mr Akomfrah said.

He said further that the NPP and NDC are yet to publish comprehensive document or manifesto on their plans for Ghana and thus their promises can thus not be believed.

On assertions from the NPP team in the studio that the NPP had delivered growth, Mr Akomfrah said growth that had been achieved under the NPP was largely “Jobless growth” and was the lowest in the West African sub-region, lower than Cote d. Ivoire, which had gone through war, he said.

The CPP, NDC and CPP panelists also discussed the oil find in Ghana, and the CPP moved to correct NPP misinformation that they discovered oil in Ghana. Mr Akomfrah noted that oil was found in Ghana as far back as during the CPP government and much of the seismic information was available from that time. He said it has simply become more economic to extract now.

He said further that it was only the CPP which has moved beyond just talking about “oil find” but had proposed long term plans around the production of oil , with its manifesto proposal to create 10 industries around Oil :

1. Petroleum Refining covering Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), Petrol and Gasoline , Diesel fuels, Aviation /Jet Fuel, Lubricating Oil, Petroleum Jelly, Bitumen asphalt, Carbon Black, Wax

2. Petrochemical feedstock, ethylene, propylene, butanes, butenes, naphthalene’s, benzenes toluene and eylenes.

3. Vinyl Chloride and PVC Plastics and synthetic Rubber for tyres and other rubber compounds.

4. Inks and Paints, varnish, and anti-rust chemicals.

5. Industrial solvents

6. Detergents

7. Insecticides, fungicides and sprays.

8. Leather and textile oils

9. Fuel and metallurgical coke

10. Fertiliser from natural gas etc

The session ended with all sides appealing to Ghanaians to support them.

Forward Ever Communications Directorate – www.cppuk.org info@cppuk.org cppyouth@gmail.com