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President Mahama Promises ‘Better Ghana Agenda’


President John Dramani Mahama speaks to ruling party supporters at his final campaign rally ahead of Friday's presidential election, in Accra, December 5, 2012.
President John Dramani Mahama speaks to ruling party supporters at his final campaign rally ahead of Friday's presidential election, in Accra, December 5, 2012.
Ghana’s information minister says incumbent President John Dramani Mahama will focus on investing in Ghana by creating jobs as part of his “better Ghana agenda” if he is elected to a full term as president in Friday’s presidential balloting.

“We’ve learned to come up with a realistic manifesto, which is about reality. We want to invest in jobs and in people, in the economy, which is something that is part of the prevailing better Ghana agenda,” said Information Minister Fritz Baffour.

“We’ve already laid the foundation,” Baffour added. “We’ve taken off and we want to soar.”

Baffour said President Mahama will continue to implement policies that would improve the standard of living.

“He has a deep knowledge of the governance system of Ghana,” Baffour said of the president. “He has worked in almost all of the great structures of government and has the savvy to be able to come up with decisions based on the institutional knowledge that he has.”

Baffour says the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has realistic policies to strengthen the education system and improve healthcare delivery across the country.

He said Mr. Mahama and the NDC have laid the groundwork for better economic prospects for all Ghanaians.

In its manifesto, the party said it would rapidly expand the country’s educational assets so that every child could enter school, get a basic education, and complete secondary school.

“We are building more schools, more dormitories, and we are training more teachers,” continued Baffour. “In the next four years, we intend to build 10 new training colleges. We intend to also build 200 Day-Secondary schools in the communities, which do not have boarding schools. And we’ve distributed over 400,000 laptops at this time and doing other things to upgrade our education infrastructure.”

He rejected criticism that the ruling party’s policies have failed to achieve promised economic prosperity and improved infrastructure.

“We had a crumbling infrastructure, which we had to rehabilitate and improve upon. But we have really taken off in terms of the infrastructure that we’ve worked on over the last four years.”

He called on prospective voters to have confidence in Mr. Mahama and the NDC to deliver on the “better Ghana agenda.”

“Trust us. We are working for you and, we will work for you,” said Baffour.

John Dramani Mahama was born at Bole Bamboi in Ghana’s northern region on November 29 1958. He is a former legislator and served as deputy minister of communications in 1997 and communications minister in 1998. He was as the minority parliamentary spokesman for communications for the opposition NDC from 2001 to 2004.

Mahama became the vice president after he was chosen as running mate by then-president John Evans Atta Mills for 2008 presidential election.

When Mr. Atta Mills died, Mahama became transitional president to serve out the remaining five months of the presidential term. He and his wife Lordina Mahama have seven children.
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