The Vice President Kwesi Amissah–Arthur has stated that this year’s election is a choice between realism and political opportunism.
Mr Amissah–Arthur made the statement at a lecture with students of the Cape Coast Technical University. The forum with the student’s forms part of his four-day campaign tour of the Central region.
He said any political party manifesto which is not coherent and realistic must not be taken serious.
The Vice President said the NDC manifesto is a logical definition of the vision that guided the parry since 2008. He said we are going to elect President and Members of Parliament so it’s important for us to make a choice that is good for our country and the country’s future.
Mr Amissah–Arthur said he’s come there to tell the people of this country that given the choices available to them. President John Mahama is the best choice for Ghana December 2016. If for nothing at all when they go home after this evening function they should remember three things
First a political party is the most important organization in any country and it the responsibility of any political party to organize any human resources available to it and to use the skill and expertise and administer it to a country when it wins an election.
Secondly elections are the plans for the future, an election uses the past as a guide but is looking forward to the future, so to look forward to the future you must have a manifesto that is coherent and a realistic document the shows the seriousness of the party to win power and administer the country for the future and future generations.
So a manifesto must not be hesitant or indecisive it must not be insincere and should not be an opportunistic document because when the document is opportunistic it can just be abandoned because it lacks rigor and credibility.
And it must be rigorous and must be designed very well to address the future needs of our country.
The Vice President said in 2016 when the NDC manifesto was unveiled in Sunyani is a logical development of the vision of the party since they were in opposition in the year 2008.’
Vice President Amissah-Arthur said the current manifesto launched by the party in Sunyani has four thematic areas with emphasis on job creation.
He said the NDC’s ideology of Social Democracy aptly articulate the vision of the party that the circumstances of a person’s birth should not determine his contribution to the nation.
He said the NDC is a party that creates opportunities for all people in the country to develop their fullest potential so that they can contribute their maximum to the nation.
The Vice President said political party is made up of members who have like minds they think alike because they subscribe to the same ideas or the same ideology or guide by adherence to a particular set of ideas or philosophy based on this they bring a set of policies to win power in order to manage national affairs .So want to contract two broad competing philosophies.
The Vice President said Social democracy is what the NDC subscribes to compared to capitalist of their opponent. Compared to the social democracy that the NDC subscribes to and seeks to maximize
He the circumstances of a person’s but should not determine the condition of his life and should not determine his contribution to our nation whether the person was born high born low.
This he said should not determine how much you can contribute to your country.
And that the NDC is determined to create opportunities for all the people of Ghana to determine the great potential that is the NDCs philosophy. He further stated that everybody has a potential and must seek to enhance that potential to its fullest.So that they can maximise it to national development.
Quoting Carl Max who summarized this philosophy to one sentence said from each according to their ability and to each according to their needs, that he said is the philosophy that guides the NDC.
The Vice President said the opponent on the other side have a more capitalistic ways of looking at it the way they think. And that that if people do well and businesses it can trickle down to other people. That is to summaries he said is their policy that is what guides them and makes their policy incoherent.
So one we have these two competing philosophes then we have a election and the NDC elections has the greatest take for the young people of Ghana. And that every election is a way which in the county decided how the future of the country’s life is going to be like.
Mr Amissah Arthur also told the students that we don’t want political party that has a short term view of the country’s prospects. Instead we want a party that looks into the future that makes long term plans so that the nation can thrive in a competitive global world.
He further stated that The NDC has putting people first emphasis education and heath particularly, secondly building a strong and resilient economy so that they can continue to make development and make progress thirdly priority to expend the nation’s infrastructure then transparent and accountable governance.
These four themes he said have been repeated in 2016 and a light modification on that and emphasis on creating jobs and making sure that youthful people have jobs to do. He said the NDC has a more credible program for the future of our country than their opponents.
And the reason is simple the opponents try every opportunity they have to denigrate the NDC achievement through their running mates lectures and even by their manifesto that they launched about a week ago in Accra As he said the lecture and manifesto exhibits a week understanding of economic concepts and they mix various concepts as they go along and they pick and choose which one and make their case strong.So there’s no consistency in the way which the opponents analyze the national situation.
So for them the only revenue that is important that has explained the progress that this country has made is that we are an oil exploration county and refuse to look at some of the things that happened in their period in office, such as the significant debt cancellation of HIPC initiative. so we have a Criticism of their criticism of us . But we expected that if they were smart they would have corrected the analytical errors in the lecture that led to their manifesto.
Because they have come to wrong conclusion which is not justified by the data and the facts, they are persistent in drawing the wrong conclusions and putting them in to their manifesto.
The Vice President said they have also embellished the achievement of administration the NPP between 2001 and 2008 in order to achieve this goal.
They have also taken credit for the work of people they have been rejected in their political party.
Their criticism of the NDC’ is that they have not sustained macroeconomic stability but in their manifesto they have put in about 63 proposals eight of them are revenue proposals which they reduce revenues and when he calculates the cost the revenue loss that their manifesto proposes, he gets something like 6.2 Million cedi’s if they were running the government this year from the reductions in taxes rates and so on.
He said in addition they have also introduced 21 billion of new expenditures so together with the loss of revenue and increase in expenditure they are talking of an additional 27 billion Ghana cedi’s of fiscal deficit that they are introducing into the economy. The election is a choice between realism and opportunism
Vice President Amissah-Arthur also stated that despite attempt by the NPP to denigrate the achievements of the NDC at any opportunity they get especially by Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the Vice Presidential candidate of the NPP would not deter the government from continuing with its transformational agenda.
He said the NPP’s proposed tax breaks and incentives in their manifesto would amount to ?6.2 billion in additions to the introduction of ?21 billion in expenditures.
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