… in social mitigation programmes.

At the recent IEA Meet the Presidential Aspirant session, Nana Akufo-Addo very rightly described this years’ election as “truly historic for our nation.”. He followed that statement up as follows “before us is the opportunity to fundamentally improve the lives of Ghanaians. The choice is whether to move forward with the New Patriotic Party or go back to and with the National Democratic Congress. There are clear differences between the major parties. There are differences in our records in government. There are differences in our respective past performances; there are differences in our respective visions for the future and there are differences in the Presidential candidates of the parties.”

Again, Ghana's development partners on 30th June 2008 announced a 1.7 billion dollar support for 2008 to accelerate implementation of programmes under the country's Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy II. Mr Filiberto Ceriani Sebregondi, Head of EU Delegation in Ghana, said the increased support was the joint effort of donors to align their contributions to the development aspirations of Ghana. He told a press conference shortly after the meeting "We have constantly engaged in the last few years in a progressive alignment of aid to Ghana's priority of human resource development, private sector competitiveness and good governance."

It is not for nothing that Nana Akufo-Addo mentions the records in government and it is also not for nothing that Ghana’s development partners continue to support us. It is against these backgrounds that I want to discuss the social mitigation programmes that both the NDC and NPP governments have introduced in their respective eight years of governance.

In the area of education the NPP has had four big hits against the NDC’s single one in child centered policies. The four hits are; the rolling out of the Free Compulsory Universal basic Education [FCUBE] which has doubled primary school intake especially in the northern regions of Ghana; the introduction of the school feeding programme which caters for over 900,000 Ghanaian children today; capitation grant, a bursary to ease school fees burden and finally free ride on the metro mass transport for sc. The NDC introduced the GET Fund but missed glorious opportunities to use it for the benefit of children . In health, the single NPP hit is the National Health Insurance Scheme which the NDC have disgracefully attacked instead of admitting “we blew it”. The NHIS has singularly brought hope to the people of a country where the hope at independence had turned into fear and hopelessness as a result of missed opportunities and bad regimes. For me personally, the NHIS with its rapid expansion and improvements to include pregnant women and children under 18 will be the barge pole that will take the NPP beyond the 50% mark in the December’s polls.

The NPP has also scored one over the NDC in the re-introduction of mass transportation. When Ex-President Rawlings took over our nation, it was awashed with the Omnibus Service Authority. This was systematically destroyed to nothingness. The Metro Mass Transport introduced by the sheer persistence of President Kufuor has been a clearly visible achievement of his government which the NDC cannot deny.

The NDC was always hitting the NPP for six over their manifesto promise to create 100,000 jobs until the NYEP was rolled out. With seven out of the ten modules rolled out the NYEP had already exceeded the 100,000 mark with employments in both blue and white collar jobs. The NDC’s answer to job creation was the A/CDRs and Militia which they allowed to quietly exist from the PNDC era even though they had no place in under constitutional rule.

In poverty alleviation, the big two NPP scores over the NDC are in the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty [LEAP] programme and the creation of the Northern Development Fund. These two big hits are policy frameworks intended decrease social inequality in our country. Whereas the former is intended to bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots, the latter is intended to bridge the gap between north and south in the country. Either way it is a win, win situation for the people of Ghana. The irony is that these social engineering programmes have been created by the so-called elitist party which the so-called social democrats spurned it for over a decade of opportunity.

In micro-economics, the NPP have also hit the NDC with a good range of micro-financing to help set people up in business. The 50million dollar micro-credit and small loan [MASLOC] fund for small and medium businesses; the Export Development Fund [EDIF]and the Ghana Private Sector Development Fund [GPSDF] have all helped to revive old and set up new businesses to drive the golden age of business agenda of the NPP.

It is only fair to say that when the NPP took over the governance of Ghana in January 2001 the nation was bankrupt with a demoralized population and a body politic scared by an authoritarian culture. Since then they have compiled a record of solid achievements which have laid a strong foundation for modernization of society and the transformation of the national economy. I think the nation is poised for modernization and the NPP is only credible party to take the nation forward. Undoubtedly never in the history of Ghana, has freedom and development so flourished as under the NPP administration. It is my belief and hope that the sheer record of NPP in power over the past seven and a half years will see Nana Akufo-Addo through as the next president of Ghana.