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This is the first of three national broadcasts on 1.  Governance and national discipline; 2.  Jobs, jobs, jobs; 3. What Ghanaians should expect from a PPP administration

My name is Papa Kwesi Nduom, the Presidential Candidate of the Progressive People's Party, PPP.  On Wednesday 7th December, I will be Number 4 on the Presidential Ballot.  I was born at Elmina in the Central Region, specifically, from Teterkessim. 

My grandparents are from and lived in Elmina, Senya Breku, Gomoa Dago and Tarkwa.  My parents were both primary school teachers.  I am where I am today by the Grace of God and through the diligence of my parents and hard work.  I am a Christian and respect other religions.  My life has been guided by my faith, family values and public service. 

I am here in all humility and with a spirit of service to my nation, to ask for your votes to become the next President of the Republic of Ghana.  I want to put the experience I have gained creating jobs for thousands of people in all the districts in Ghana to deliver jobs and prosperity to millions of Ghanaians.

I wish to pray to God Almighty, the Maker of Heaven and Earth to touch the hearts and minds of all Ghanaians.  I pray for life and good health for all of us.  I continue to pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Angels and Saints to make it possible for the people to vote for me Papa Kwesi Nduom on December 7th 2016 to become the next President of the Republic of Ghana.


As your President, I will:


1.  Unite the people to ensure lasting peace to enable development.

2.  Put in place an all-inclusive, lean aministration of not more than 40 ministers of state for accelerated development and reform the public sector to become responsive to the private productive sector.

3.  Fight corruption actively.

4.  Implement the national identification system and mandate the use of a single identification number to enforce discipline in our society.

5.  Eliminate winner-takes-all from our governance.

“In the long-run, every government is the exact symbol of its people, with their wisdom and unwisdom”. (Thomas Carlyle – Scottish-born English writer).  I am convinced that you get what you vote for. 

Which means in the end, the person you vote for is you.  I know you want the best for yourself.  So I ask you today, please vote for the best to get the best that you wish for and this year, I believe that Papa Kwesi Nduom and the PPP offer the best ideas, solutions and leadership to make Ghana great and strong and its people prosperous.  So vote for #4 Papa Kwesi Nduom and PPP.


Papa Kwesi Nduom and PPP will stop the "Social Sin of Politics Without Principle (Donaldson)".


I am convinced now more than ever, that politics of intimidation, violence, abuse of incumbency, the use of our tax money by the party in power, tribalism and vote stealing will condemn and entrench the majority of our people in poverty in all its forms - poor housing, bad health, short lifespan, inferior education, disease and unemployment.  A resource rich country like Ghana deserves better than what its people are experiencing. 

Nothing will change if we continue to do the same things and keep making the same mistakes.  I ask, what is the point in engaging in this thing we loosely call “politics” in Ghana?. This Politics Without Principle?


I am worried about what will happen to Ghana during and after the 2016 elections.  I am not afraid about how the PPP will fare in the 2016 elections.  I have won and lost elections.  So I have experienced what you feel when you lose and when you win. 

I have experienced what burdens we carry when we contest elections at the local and national levels.  So I know that we are senselessly deluding ourselves that we are in a democracy, that there is freedom of choice and that elections are “free and fair”.  The unfairness in Ghana’s elections starts way before the actual elections and continues to election day.  Election observers are well-meaning but they have become another element of cover-up for stealing and bribery.

I am afraid for Ghana.  Will we remain a one country, largely united under one administration after the 2016 elections?  Will the Ghanaian economy have the ability to sustain the use of the government treasury to finance a partisan campaign? 

Will we still have confidence in using the ballot box to elect our leaders?  I am believer in democracy.  But I am questioning what type of democracy we have that allows some political parties to act with impunity, cheat and divide the same people they want to rule. 

 
The 1992 Constitution

To look ahead to the 2016 elections, we must look back to the beginning of the Fourth Republic.  After the infamous "hand over to whom?" question was asked, we went ahead and did just that, handed over the administration of this country to the same man and the same band of men and women bent on hanging on to power by all means, at all cost using our tax money. 

Quite often, in our country, our people accept the views of what our situation is a lot more coming through the lenses of foreign institutions and individuals than local ones.  For several years, I have campaigned against the excessive centralization of powers in one position, that of the President of the Republic of Ghana.  Lip service is all we the locals get. 

It is this problem of excessive centralization of powers that is dragging our country more and more to become a habitual below expectation performer.  And it is because those who happen to be in power are always happy to use the powers to try and steal elections.  So if Ghanaians will not listen to me, here is what a foreign institution paid some researchers to produce about our governance system:

 

“Effective participation in the making and implementation of public policy has been limited to a small political elite which has succeeded in capturing the presidency, albeit through fairly competitive elections, and with it control of the public resources that the constitution places under control of the executive branch. Ghana’s political system combines competitive elections with what social scientists have called neopatrimonial rule.

The principal democracy and governance problem we identify in this report is the excessive concentration of political power in the executive branch. The powers of the president dwarf those of the other branches of government.  The president in Ghana possesses vast political and economic resources that he can employ to secure political support.

Electoral competition is the only real check on executive dominance, as the opposition party will work to win power, often at almost any cost. But although both major political parties, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), accept the legitimacy of the rules that govern politics in Ghana, these rules have serious flaws. The elite consensus among political parties is an agreement to maintain the status quo, regardless of its increasingly negative impact on democratic practice and good governance, because it offers a clear path to gaining power and thus access to the vast network of state resources.

The increasingly hyper-aggressive, winner-take-all nature of Ghanaian elections puts tremendous pressure on the one institution that has become a symbol of the country’s successful democratic transition, the Electoral Commission (EC). What happens if the EC is no longer able to perform its duties with the credibility it has commanded in the past? We raise a note of caution that the confluence of good luck and competence that marked the very close 2008 election cannot be guaranteed in the future.

Ghanaians have higher expectations for the economic and social benefits of democracy than the government seems able to produce through current institutional arrangements. In this regard, the political status quo has gone about as far as it can in moving Ghanaian democracy forward and, by extension, in creating the conditions for broad-based economic growth and social development.” (Ghana Democracy & Governance Assessment Report, August 2011 USAID).

So there you have it.  We have been lucky, so far.  What happens when we run out of luck?  What happens when those excluded from governance and those cheated during the process of participating in the elections decide that they cannot take it anymore?

 
The Electoral Commission

The Electoral Commission as it stands now, has not been able to fully enforce the Political Parties Law and make the political parties who want to come and govern this country law-abiding.  Political parties are supposed to be national in character, have offices in two-thirds of the districts, raise funds from Ghanaians within the prescribed limits, deliver annual returns, among others. 

I know how the PPP has been working hard to raise money and stay active to ensure that we meet the requirements.  Does the EC know how the parties raised money to fund their campaigns?  We have so-called political parties in Ghana that are sole proprietors, ethnic based, specific regions in content, etc.  We have an EC that is election focused and is behind times. 

Otherwise, why does the EC still encouraging the use of party polling agents when they do not exist in advanced democracies; Why do we not have continuous registration of voters when they reach age 18; Why are we not allowing Ghanaians abroad to vote; And why are we not using electronic voting methods?


State of Economic Emergency & Call for a Lean Administration

Ghana’s budget deficit in 2014 was reportedly more than 9.6% of the GDP.  This is why the IMF has made a deal with government that includes removing subsidies on fuel, water, electricity etc. to reduce the deficit from 2015 going forward. 

But we seem to forget one thing.  Budget deficits have been experienced consistently every four years i.e. after every election.  My point is that election year spending by governments in the Fourth Republic has put our economy at risk and collapsed many businesses.  The Mahama Administration is on course to repeat the excessive spending in election year 2016 and bring back problems for all of us after the election.

I intend to call a state of economic emergency my first day in office as President.  Foreign travel will be the exception for me and members of my administration.

The words “Honourable” and “His Excellency” will be discouraged by me.  Politicians are there to serve and not to be given special treatment as a higher class of people.

A PPP government will NOT pay for any generator or fuel cost for any Minister of State.  This will force the government to fix electricity issues promptly.  Government will NOT pay for the medical bills of any Minister of State, government official and their family members who seek medical treatment abroad. We will fix the Health Care System for the benefit of all Ghanaians.

 
Tribalism

I will fight tribalism in all its forms because it promotes inferior, mediocre leaders and results in poverty and intolerance.  I am not an Ewe or an Ashanti so should that mean that my party cannot win support or votes from the Volta or the Ashanti regions?  I am not a Frafra, Dagomba or Ga so should I avoid areas where these ethnic people can be found?  I am a Fante but I have created jobs in every district in Ghana.  I will behave the same way in government - tribal blind with opportunity for everyone

The 1992 constitution aids and abets tribalism in our politics.  The constitution does not stop at being Ghanaian as what qualifies one to contest election to go to parliament.  It requires you to "hail” from an area or live there for a number of years.  In the First Republic, an Nzema won election to go to Parliament in Accra.  An Ewe went to Parliament from the Central Region. 

In this Fourth Republic, due to tribal-based politics, some seats are "reserved" for political parties identified with those tribes.  If this is repeated in 2016 and beyond, where will the competition in our campaigns be?  What will the point be in contesting an election in an area where your party is not considered a member of the tribe?  What sort of democracy is this where tribalism overtakes merit?  Without merit, this nation we call Ghana can never be prosperous and our good people will continue to run away to other countries.  Those who occupy most of our political positions will be “inferiors”.