He said in the quest to deliver on the wishes and aspirations of the Ghanaian people, he presented them with a most ambitious programme of social and economic transformation quite unknown of any government and was gratified that positive signs were showing.

“These interventions are already lowering the cost of doing business and shifting the focus of our economy from taxation to production,” the President said.

Addressing a meeting of the International Democratic Union (IDU) at the Flagstaff House yesterday, the President recalled that his government’s first budget in March this year introduced measures to stimulate the private sector.  

The steps taken, he said, included a monetary policy targeted at stabilising the currency and significantly reducing the cost of borrowing, in addition to a raft of tax cuts to bring relief to the masses and encourage businesses to grow.

Government’s policy thrust

President Akufo-Addo said the main thrust of the economic programme introduced by his government hinged on restructuring the institutions of governance, modernising agriculture to enhance productivity in the sector, churning out a clear industrial policy and a rationalisation of the financial sector to enable it to support growth in agriculture, manufacturing and industry.

He said the government also aimed to further improve the business atmosphere and make Ghana an easy place to conduct business through paperless transactions at the ports, as well as remove all internal custom barriers by the beginning of September this year.

He said in the process of industrialising and transforming the economy, it was essential to ensure that the most basic elements of social justice were met; for instance, by making quality basic education and quality health care accessible to all and also promote a culture of incentives and opportunities.

“We are determined to build a new Ghanaian civilisation, a Ghana beyond aid; a Ghana where we are masters of our own destiny and marshal our own resources for the future, breaking the shackles of the ‘Guggisberg’ colonial economy of a producer of raw materials with a mind-set of dependency, bailouts and extraction,” he said.

The ultimate aim of his government, he said, was to make Ghana’s economy “the most business friendly on the continent of Africa and in the world”.
President Akufo-Addo said Ghana’s focus would be on trade, not aid, and receiving a hand-up, not a hand-out.

Global issues

The President noted that the Global Village was being buffeted by stormy, adverse winds, inclusive of vicious terrorism, religious extremism, resurgent populism in the Western democracies, as well as potentially devastating climatic and environmental changes, in addition to growing inequality between the North and the South.

He said in his view, never had the necessity to organise, mobilise and clearly articulate human values and messages of harmony been greater.

“I have no doubt that in going forward, we shall prevail on this continent and around the world and create peaceful coexistence, serenity and progress for our common planet and our common humanity and thereby banish global poverty and hunger,” he said.

He was hopeful that at the end of the meeting, the group would share best practices in governance and marketing strategies for winning elections and refine tools needed to ensure that the union continuously gained and maintained the support of the electorate.

He said political parties that formed the membership of the union were at the helm of some of the biggest and most successful economies and emerging markets in the world and were having a positive impact on the current generation.

“We must ensure that with the aid of science and technology, promotion of enterprise, innovation and creativity and spread of democratic values, we will offer prospects of a constructive new era of prosperity in freedom for all the peoples of the world. I am confident that we can work together to achieve this noble goal,” President Akufo-Addo added.

IDU on Election 2016

The Deputy Chair of the IDU, Mr Tony Clement, said the union shared in the vision and aspiration of Ghanaians.

He said it was particularly enthused by the victory of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2016 elections, and added that for the union, President Akufo-Addo’s victory came as a “thunderclap” and that it was optimistic that he would work to make Ghana a hotspot in the international scheme of things.

IDU

The IDU is a working association of over 80 conservative, democratic and like-minded political parties of the centre and centre right.

Formed in 1983, the union provides a forum in which parties holding similar beliefs come together and exchange views on matters of policy and organisational interest in order to learn from one another, act together, establish contacts and speak with one voice to promote democracy and centre-right policies around the globe.