Wa, Dec. 22, GNA - Former Vice-President Alhaji Aliu Mahama, has sai= d the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has taken note of mistakes it made in government and would not repeat them if it wins the next election. "The eight years we had was a learning process. We made serious mistakes that did touch your lives. We have learnt from them and we will no= t repeat them when we come back after 2012."

"It is always good when you see two worlds, one in government and th= e other in opposition. NPP will be a new and better NPP for all of you", he said at a meeting with party activists and key supporters in Wa. The former Vice-President, who was on a two-day visit to the Upper Wes= t Region, urged all Party members in the region to bury their differences and to forge a united front to enable them campaign effectively for the next election. He said unity within the rank and file of the Party was far greater no= w than before adding that Nana Akufo Addo was the Presidential candidate and leader of the Party and everybody must therefore forget about camps, forgiv= e one another and unite behind him.

He said that the National Youth Employment Programme which the NPP government had created had now become a main source of employment for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) members. According to him, beneficiaries of the program who the NDC perceived a= s sympathizers of the NPP were being sacked with the excuse that their contracts had ended. "If you are in Government and you cannot add to what you have come t= o meet you do not subtract from it", he said. He said contractors with known sympathies for the NPP were being denie= d jobs by the current government which he noted was not the case when they were in power.

Alhaji Mahama cited the construction of new access roads within the Wa Municipality, building of structures for the Wa Polytechnic which before th= e NPP came, operated from borrowed buildings, upgrading of infrastructure at the Wa Senior High School as some of the achievements of the Kufuor administration in the town. He said the establishment of the Wa Campus of the University for Development Studies by the NPP regime for example has boosted economic activities in the town. "Before we took over in 2001, there was only one taxicab serving the whole of Wa when I came here in 2001, after eight years you cannot count th= e number of taxis in the town." "At that time, you could count the number of cars and motorbikes in the town but now there are even 93Trotros" and Wa is experiencing traffic ja= ms," he said.