Accra, May 25, GNA - The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) on Friday joined millions of Africans to commemorate the African Union Day with a call on Africans to take a sober and dispassionate look at the opportunities and challenges facing the continent and its people.

A statement singed by Nana Ohene Ntow, NPP General Secretary to commemorate the AU Day urged African leaders to reflect on the state of African economies during the celebration.

The ruling party expressed concern about lack of intra-African trade, 44 years after the formation of the Organisation of African Unity, now AU, stressing; "Africa still lives with the criminal situation where Nigeria, for instance, imports two billion dollars worth of salt from Brazil while Ghana, a few hours away by means of transportation, is capable of supplying all Nigeria's salt needs."

The NPP deplored the situation where Africans drink Sri Lanka and India tea when Kenya produces and exports the world's best quality tea. The party also expressed disgust about the skewed international trade links, between the rich north and the poor mainly African-South, which have intensified rather than alleviating poverty in the south. "Not surprisingly, Africa is the only continent where many countries' economies were retrogressing...to give these economies a spurt toward real development requires investment in key sectors," the statement noted.

The NPP called for a new paradigm shift and new ideas to redeem the continent from the morass into which it is semi-permanently bogged. "The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) could only be useful if it is able to address the fundamental problems facing Africa, that Africa, the richest continent is the poorest, subsisting on the worst possible poverty levels, is a contradiction in terms and an indictment of the continent.

"It is the belief of the ruling government that we in Ghana had the particular responsibility to lead Africa out of the woods through championing African Excellence in our 50th Anniversary year as it led the way for political emancipation during the liberation struggles. "By virtue of the fact that His Excellency John Agyekum Kufuor, President of Ghana, is coincidentally, the current Chairman of the AU, fate has put Ghana in the vanguard in another African effort to lead the true renaissance of Africa," it stated.