The flag bearer of the NPP, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has reiterated his determination to set up a Zongo Development Fund.
The fund, he explained, would aim at enhancing infrastructural development in Zongo communities in order to improve the lives of the residents. He assured the people that policy, which was in his 2012 manifesto, would be in the 2016 policy document.
He was addressing the first-ever NPP Nasara Conference held in Kumasi, which attracted participants from all around the country, and party elders.
“I would do something never done before in our history to tackle the deprived nature of the Zongos.
“I said an Akufo-Addo government would establish a special fund called the Zongo Development Fund”, he said to a thundering applause.
Nana Akufo-Addo appealed to the people in Zongo communities across Ghana to have confidence in him.
He explained that when, by the Grace of God, the mantle of national leadership was thrusted on his shoulders, he would lead an honest and capable administration.
"The administration will turn the economy of our country around, give good governance to our people and restore prosperity to our nation,” he stressed.
Aliens Compliance Act
Tracing the history of the antecedent of the party, Nana Akufo-Addo said the United Party (UP), in the 1940s, was strong in the Zongos where it had an important support base to which the NPP traced its roots.
Indeed, the very first acts of intolerance of opposition by Kwame Nkrumah’s CPP government, Nana Akufo-Addo said, were directed at the leaders of the Moslem Association Party, which led to the deportation of people such as Amadu Baba and Usman Lardan, which took place in 1957, the year of independence.
He described as unfortunate, the introduction of the Aliens Compliance Act of 1969, which led to the party losing sympathies of the Zongo communities but assured the people that it would never occur again just as it did not happen in the eight-year rule of Kufuor.
He added that even the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, Residence, and Establishment, to which Ghana is a party, prohibited the making of a law the Aliens Compliance Act.
“So I want to re-emphasise my pledge that contrary to what our political opponents are saying, and seek to do by putting fear in Zongo communities, the NPP will not, let me repeat, will not introduce an Aliens Compliance Act”, he added.
Hard times
Nana Akufo-Addo said Ghana was going through bad times under the two-term rule of the NDC government, which had been characterised by widespread despondency.
This, he explained, had come about through rising cost of living, low real wages, high levels of youth unemployment, massive utility hikes, rising petroleum prices at a time of declining world crude oil prices, reduced productivity in agriculture and manufacturing, collapsed businesses and increasing poverty.
“Ghana has now become a byword for corruption”, he added
The NPP flag bearer assured all Ghanaians that the NPP had the programmes, the policies and the people who could turn the fortunes of Ghana around, and reminded them that the difficult economy the NPP inherited in 2001 notwithstanding, President John Agyekum Kufuor put an able team together and before very long, Ghana became the success story of the continent saying “Akufo-Addo will do the same”.
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