President Nana Akufo-Addo
The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has said that by the end of his four-year mandate, Ghanaians will be in a better position to determine whether or not he has fulfilled his promises, adding that he has no intention to deceive the people.
“We are two and half years into a four-year mandate, and what I continue to insist and tell the people of Ghana is that by the end of my mandate, they will see that I came to tell them the truth about what I wanted to do. I didn’t come to deceive anybody,” the President stressed.
Addressing Ghanaian residents on Monday in Paris, France, where he is on a state visit on the invitation of French President, Emmanuel Macron, President Akufo-Addo said, “I know that my opponents will be saying something else, but that is their right. God willing, on 7th December 2020, the day of accountability, we will know who is telling the truth.”
He said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government he is leading is fulfilling its campaign promises by putting in place sound policies and programmes to make Ghana better, and the electorate would be the better judge in 2020.
Patriotic Citizens
President Akufo-Addo said the time had come for Ghanaians to ‘cherish’ their nationality and not aid foreigners to be part of national identification process.
“Let us cherish our nationality; let us cherish our citizenship. Don’t let any of you be party to trying to get the Ghana Card for people who are not Ghanaian. A lot of the time, it is our own people who are leading this exercise of getting non-Ghanaians our Ghana Card,” he said.
“We are trying to make sure NHIS works for Ghanaians, and adding non-Ghanaian population to that only strains the service. I don’t think Ghanaian taxpayers should be subsidizing our health care for others. I say this with the greatest of respect to those who are not Ghanaian, but if you have the card, then you have the access,” the President added.
West African Elections
He said, “These elections that we have, some people want to translate Ghanaian elections into West African elections. We have not yet gotten to a situation where Togolese, Ivorians and Malians can vote in Ghana elections. That should not be the case. The elections should be for Ghanaians, and, if all of us are vigilant, we can make sure that that is the reality.”
“My own belief is that we should make sure that this process is completed for everybody before we bring the election overseas. We all know that there are people holding our papers who are not necessarily Ghanaian. It is not a secret, and we shouldn’t be dishonest about it and deny it. It is a fact,” he pointed out.
“If this process of giving each of us an identity card is what is going to be able to determine who is and who is not a Ghanaian, I think that we should have that process completed before we can bring the overseas vote into play,” he said.
The President also announced to the Ghanaian residents that Ghana has been selected by the Africa Union to host the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, describing it as “one of the most important things that the AU has done.”
He expressed confidence that the AfCFTA will “give us the opportunity to bring the 1.2 billion people on our continent into active play in developing our continent. We have to find a way of developing our continent ourselves. We can’t continue to depend on foreigners to develop our continent for us.”
He commended the late President John Evans Atta Mills for being the first Ghanaian President to move the motion for the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area in 2011.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent