Official Speech by H. E. President Mahama at the 8th National Delegates Conference 20/12/2014 Our Presiding Chairman, who is the National Chairman Dr Kwabena Adjei Your Excellency the Vice President, Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur Your Excellency, Founder of the NDC, President Jerry John Rawlings Wife of the President, Lordina Mahama, and only recently enstooled as Sompahemaa of the Nkoranza Traditional Area Members of our Council of Elders Founding Members of the great NDC National Executive Committee Members Representatives of Sister Political Parties Your Excellencies, Members of the Diplomatic Corps Fellow delegates, my comrades and friends. Let me begin by expressing my sincerest appreciation to the Founder, President Jerry Rawlings, for the very insightful statement he made at the beginning of this summit. I believe that the emphasis that he has put on upholding the core values and principles of our party would be one that has gone down well, and that delegates would carry this clarion call back to all our constituencies and use it as an instrument to re-energize our party. The atmosphere here today brings nostalgic feelings of the 30th of August 2012 when we assembled in this very same venue. It was the event of endorsing my candidature to stand as Presidential candidate of our party in the 2012 elections. Let me use this occasion to thank all our supporters, all our delegates and all our sympathisers and indeed everybody who voted for the NDC in the 2012 election. Let me thank you for the support that you gave us. It was a very difficult campaign because we had a period of barely 3 months to prosecute that campaign and yet we emerged with a victory and a margin of more than 300,000 votes. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are gathered here today again as one family for our 8th National Delegates Congress to elect officers to ran and manage our party for the next four years. But before we get to that very important event permit me to express once again my gratitude for the confidence you have continued to repose in me and the leadership to continue to ran the affairs of state. Fellow Akatamansonians, in my quiet moments of reflection, I have thought about the commitment and work after that congress here in Kumasi and still wonder how we were able to clinch that victory in such a short period. Our victory, ladies and gentlemen, could only have been ordained by the Almighty God. Yes, our victory was ordained by God, and the hard work of our supporters and food soldiers on the ground. So we are back at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium where it all began and I hope I can count on your continuous and unflinching support to complete what we started here in 2012. I have also come to remind us that a house divided among itself cannot stand and therefore peace, unity, internal cohesion and harmony are very desirable in ensuring that our party is successful after this summit. Ladies and gentlemen, across the country, throughout all the structures of the party, we all adopted the campaign in 2012 as our own and we spent sleepless nights prosecuting it. On your behalf, I wish to thank the chiefs, queen mothers and all the people of Ghana for the patience and support they gave us. There were many occasions when our chiefs and elders and their people waited for our campaign team for several hours, sometimes lasting till the wee hours of the morning- 2am, 3am, 4am, and I want to take this opportunity to thank our chiefs and our opinion leaders and our people for their patience and tolerance exhibited during the campaign. Our victory in 2012 was also a victory for our late President John Evans Atta Mills. Our victory was an attestation to the fact that the late Professor had fought a good fight on this earth and I am confident that His Excellency Atta Mills is looking down on us from heaven with a sense of pride. May his soul rest in perfect peace. On this occasion I also wish to pay my respect to Her Excellency Dr. Ernestina Naadu Mills, who is not here with us today, and say that in our regular interactions with her, we are constantly reminded of what the Asomdwehene stood for and how he developed to become such a well-loved political figure. My brothers and sisters, as I stand before you here at this congress, I feel positive that with hard work we shall emerge victorious again in the 2016 election by the Grace of God. I make this prediction mindful of the challenges we face as a country. Indeed I am also mindful of the fact that even with a vote difference of over 300,000 this country was virtually brought to a standstill for eight long months at the Supreme Court over an election petition which eventually did not change the validity of the decision that the people of Ghana had made. With the verdict of the people affirmed by the courts, we have been working hard to justify the mandate entrusted to us by the people of Ghana, and I am happy to report to you, as we approach the second anniversary of our assumption of office on January 7th 2013, that your government is steadily delivering and creditably so on the mandate that were given by the people of Ghana. I am grateful to all of you for your contribution and sacrifices. Ghana is renowned the world over for our leadership in the liberation struggle of Africa. This is a country admired and envied for our democratic credentials and more importantly celebrated for its warm, hospitable and friendly people. As I encounter many people across the world, the more confirmation and validation I receive about the greatness of our beloved country. Only this Thursday the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, drove this fact strongly home during a meeting I held with him at the Flagstaff House. This immutable truth inspires me as President to cherish the mandate given to us by our people and to walk selflessly and as hard as possible to achieve this mandate. Our only focus as a party, and a social democratic party, is to improve the lives of our people. I am glad to observe that notwithstanding the temporary challenges that we are facing, your party is making remarkable progress in many sectors of our national life and let nobody tell you anything different. The achievements are there to see in all sectors of national life. In the health sector, we continue to achieve successes. The Police Hospital Expansion Project is progressing smoothly; the same can be said for the Upper West Regional Hospital being built in Wa; the 420-bed Ridge Hospital being constructed in Accra; the 600-bed University of Ghana Teaching Hospital also in Accra; the 500-bed Military Hospital being constructed here in Kumasi and the second phase of the Tamale Teaching Hospital, which is currently ongoing. We completed five (5) polyclinics in the Brong Ahafo Region and another fifteen (15) polyclinics are about to start in the Central and Greater Accra Regions. Many CHPS compounds, clinics, health centres, are springing up all over the country. In the education sector our priority is to expand access and improve quality of the education our children get. As you are aware, the 200 Community Day Secondary Schools we promised is well on course. Work on fifty (50) of these secondary schools is ongoing and another twenty-three (23) sites have been prepared for work to start. In 2015, construction will start on another fifty (50) of these schools bringing the total in 2015 to one hundred and twenty-three (123) brand new Community Day Secondary Schools. Just last Thursday, Cabinet considered and adopted the roadmap for the implementation of PROGRESSIVELY, and mark my words, PROGRESSIVELY free senior high school education. This will commence in the 2015/2016 academic year and will start with about three hundred and sixty-five thousand (365,000) day students who will pay no fees at all. What this means is that all day students in secondary schools across the country will not pay any fees. Fellow Akatamansonians, Ladies and Gentlemen, the NDC is a party that delivers when it promises. Our late Professor Mills promised to deliver two new universities in the Brong Ahafo and the Volta Region. As I speak those two new universities are thriving and making progress in moulding the future generation of Ghanaian youth. The University of Health and Allied Sciences in the Volta Region and the University of Energy and Natural Resources based in the Brong Ahafo Region are doing well. We promised to provide another university in the Eastern Region and I am happy to say that the legislation has been completed and it is being submitted to Parliament for approval. This university will be based in Somanya and will have satellite campuses in other parts of the Eastern Region. Ladies and Gentlemen, extensive works are being carried out on our roads all over the country. The Kwame Nkrumah Circle Interchange Project has become a tourist attraction in Accra and many people come and stand to look at the wonderful work that is going on. But if you think that is good enough, the Kasoa Interchange would also be a wonderful addition to it. Work on the Eastern Corridor Road is continuing and work on all other critical roads will start soon. We are starting US$150million cocoa roads rehabilitation project this year and we are committing US$150million every year for five years to rehabilitate the roads in the Volta Region, in Ashanti Region, Brong Ahafo, Central, Western and Eastern Regions. So we are going to see a dramatic overhaul of the condition of roads all over the country. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, the aviation sector is expanding and we are upgrading airports all over the country. Only recently I was here in Kumasi to commission the upgraded facilities in the Kumasi Airport. Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to say that, irrespective of how many videos are shown of me and Otumfuo dancing, the fact is that the Kumasi Airport has witnessed a considerable facelift far above what it was before we came and met it. Will the improvement impact on aviation services in Kumasi and boost business in the Ashanti Region? The answer is yes. Will the improvement benefit only members of the NDC and the Otumfuo? The answer is No. The improvement in the airport will benefit every single Ghanaian and all the residents of Kumasi and Ashanti. Ladies and Gentlemen, work on the expansion of the Takoradi Port is currently ongoing and when that expansion is finished it will allow more ships to come into the port and will lead to the employment of more than 3,000 young people. We have just signed an MOU between GPHA and Meridian Ports Services to invest US$1.5billion in the expansion of the Tema Port. The Bus Rapid Transport System will commence next year when the Scania buses ordered under the Swedish Assistance are received. Ladies and Gentlemen, as was said by President Jerry Rawlings, the National Electrification Programme began under the PNDC and NDC governments. This electrification programme saw the extension of power from the southern sector all the way to the north of the country. Before then it had been said that the transmission grid could not cover Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper West and Upper East Regions. And that is one of the significance developments in the time of the late Louis Casely Hayford that the ex-President was referring to. For the ten years that he was the Chief Executive of the Volta River Authority we saw power from Akosombo reach all the way to the North. And I remember specifically that it was him who together with the Italian engineers introduced what we call the Shield Wire Technology that made it possible to draw power directly from the high tension cables and supply power to communities along the grid. And that is how my own constituency capital Bole received electric power for the first time. We have moved Ghana under this National Electrification Programme from just over 50% electricity coverage in 2008 to currently 76% electricity coverage. Ghana therefore is the country south of the Sahara with the second highest access to electricity after South Africa. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are opening small town water systems and providing water to our people. As a result of the effort government has put in we have met and exceeded the Millennium Development Goal of providing clean drinking water to our people. That is not all, many factories that were introduced in the Nkrumah regime that had been left to rot have been revived. I was here several months ago to commission the new Kumasi Shoe Factory, which used to be the defunct GIHOC Shoe Factory, and as I speak today this factory is producing boots for our security services all across the country. I cut the sod a few months ago to revive the Komenda Sugar Factory in order to cut down on the US$270million that we spend on importing sugar every year. The Export Development and Agricultural Investment Fund is supporting farmers in the rice sector and also poultry farmers with assistance to expand their production. We have also disbursed US$19million to pharmaceutical industries to expand their production. Ladies and Gentlemen, government is a continuum and I am therefore not one to play the blame game. I have therefore had to restrain myself from responding frontally to the solidarity message that was given by our colleagues from the CPP. Ladies and gentlemen, petty partisanship is the bane of our democracy, and the wish to acquire power becomes so insatiable that we put on politically coloured lenses and make it difficult for us to see what the reality is. It is said that selective myopia is incurable and so I am not going to stand here and attempt to cure selective myopia. Ladies and gentlemen, today is a very important day for us and we have to do what it takes to bring about the leadership that will lead this party with integrity and dignity. Today marks the end of the campaign that our candidates have had to try to attract the attention of the delegates. Let us today elect competent men and women who are ready and willing to put their shoulders to the wheel and lift high the flag of NDC and the flag of Ghana. We must elect people who will stand and defend the principles and the core values of our great party, the NDC. When this is done, on January 7th 2017 our great Akatamanso Party will once again sing praises to the almighty God for giving us a great victory because we are determined to transform the economic history of our dear nation for the benefit of present generations and generations yet unborn. Let me reiterate on this occasion that I have no candidate and indeed do not support any candidate in this race. I am ready and willing to work with any person you the esteemed delegates elect. I therefore wish all the candidates participating in the elections good luck and may the best people win. Together if we stand united we shall succeed. I thank all of you for coming and God bless us all.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 08:04:54 +0000
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