THE President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has bemoaned the slow pace of economic development of the country, 60 years after independence, in spite of the resources available to it.

According to the President, there can no more be excuses why the citizens of the country should remain in poverty in the midst of plenty.

“After 60 years, we have run out of excuses, and it is time to set Ghana to rights and get our country to where it should be. The challenge before us is to build our economy and generate a prosperous, progressive and dignified life for the mass of our people. Hard work, enterprise, creativity, discipline and a consistent and effective fight against corruption in public life would bring the transformation we seek,” he emphasised

He acknowledged that although the country has made significant strides in other fields after independence, the pace of the country’s economic development still remained unacceptably slow and needed a radical move to change.

“The pace of our development has quickened and our self-confidence, which had been severely strained, has returned. At independence, the popular slogan was to seek first the political kingdom and all other things would be added. We assumed and, indeed, we expected that rapid economic development would follow the political freedom that we had won.

“Sadly, the economic dividend that was meant to accompany our freedom has still not materialised. Sixty years after those heady days, the mass of our people are still poor,” he stressed.

The President, therefore, implored Ghanaians to mobilise for an economic and social take off that would set the country’s foot on a rapid development agenda.

To achieve this, the Ghanaian must put shoulder to wheel and rise above ethnic and sectoral interest in the mobilisation of the country’s human and natural resources for economic transformation.

“We will achieve these goals when we move and act as a united people. We must take pride in our diversity by all means, but the Ghanaian must always rise above the ethnic or sectional interest. We have a bright future, and we must mobilise all our resources and all our strengths, here and in the Ghanaian Diaspora, to get to that promised land of prosperity faster”.

Touching on the subject of the environment, the president bemoaned the continued depletion of the country’s forest and water resources and the repercussion it has for the country.

“We are endangering the very survival of the beautiful and blessed land that our forebears bequeathed to us. The dense forests that were home to varied trees, plants and fauna have been largely wiped out. Today, we import timber for our use, and the description of our land as a tropical forest no longer fits the reality. Our rivers and lakes are disappearing, and those that still exist are all polluted.

“It bears repeating that we do not own the land, but hold it in trust for generations yet unborn. We have a right to exploit the bounties of the earth and extract the minerals and even redirect the path of the rivers, but we do not have the right to denude the land of the plants and fauna nor poison the rivers and lakes”.

The President took the opportunity to pay glowing tribute to the contribution of our forebearers in diverse fields for their invaluable contribution towards independence and beyond.



Read the full text of President Akufo Addo's speech.