Hopes high for president’s way forward

The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, will today perform one of his constitutional mandates when he presents the State of the Nation Address to the people of Ghana through Parliament.

It is his first State of the Nation Address and it is expected to touch on what he inherited from the Mahama administration, what has been happening between then and now, as well as the way forward.

President Nana Akufo-Addo is the fifth President of the Fourth Republic to deliver the State of the Nation Address to the  Parliament. On occasions such as this, there is a natural tendency for people to have high hopes and expectations, especially in the wake of the change campaign that propelled the President and his administration into office.

While the main issues for the 2016 general election may be common knowledge, it is helpful to touch on a few for the sake of enhancing public discourse.

Some of the campaign promises by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that readily come to mind and hold sway within the public space are one factory for every district, $1 million for each of the 275 constituencies, one dam for each village in the three northern districts and free public senior high school education, apparently the flagship policy of the government.

Others are the abolition of nuisance taxes for businesses, increased tax rebates, tackling the high level of unemployment, especially among the youth, restoration of teacher and nursing trainee allowances, among a handful others that are all geared towards making life better for Ghanaians and realigning the economy onto the path of growth, progress and prosperity.

In the face of what a school of thought has described as a Herculean task, the President appears unfazed and recently remarked that the delivery of his first budget in March 2017 would re-set the economy on the right path.

Ghanaian children who qualify to enter any public senior high school in the 2017/2018 academic year will not pay any fee or make any kind of payment that senior high students are currently paying.

There are also others who would be looking at the interplay of forces between the macro and microeconomics of the country based on indices such as the rate of inflation, foreign exchange rates, interest rates, their impact on stocks and bonds, as well as a gamut of economic indicators.

But, more importantly, one key issue that the ordinary Ghanaian would want addressed is corruption, and that is why one would be keen to see what specific interventions will be employed to stamp out the canker from the system.

The President has already sounded the warning to those he has appointed that if they are in for the money, then they better stay in the private sector.

While the President has been bold in making such a declaration, expectations are that he walks his talk and institutes measures to make corruption unattractive.

The Daily Graphic hopes that as the President and his team get ready for full action to justify the confidence reposed in them by Ghanaians, the State of the Nation Address and the budget statement in the coming days will be precursors of that change agenda that all Ghanaians have been waiting for.

More importantly, we wish to implore Ghanaians that the journey to the Promised Land will not be that easy and rosy.

It would require much commitment and concerted effort on the part of all because it cannot be business as usual.