President Akufo-Addo has stressed that no matter the state in which his New Patriotic Party (NPP) government found the Ghanaian economy, he and his team would relentlessly set the country on the path of growth.
While appreciating the fact that his government inherited a broken economy, he said, “They voted for us to fix the economy and put our country on the path of progress and prosperity.
“Indeed, we have begun to fix the economy, and the mid-year review presented on Monday by the brilliant Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, shows that we are on track. We will fix the economy. We will bring jobs and prosperity to Ghana.”
He made the commitment when he swore in five new envoys namely, Dufie Agyarko Kusi, Virginia Hesse, Francisca Ashitey-Odunton, Alowe Leo Kabah and Professor Abena Busia to represent the country’s interest abroad.
Mrs Dufie would be representing Ghana’s interest in the Republic of Korea, while her colleague, Madam Virginia Hesse, would be heading to the Czech Republic while Francisca Ashitey-Odunton, GBC Deputy Director General, becomes Ghana’s High Commissioner to Kenya.
Alowe Leo Kabah, a seasoned lawyer and politician, would be heading for Benin as Ghana’s Ambassador while the acclaimed academic and poet, Prof. Abena Busia, becomes Ghana’s Ambassador to Brazil.
President Akufo-Addo therefore gave them a charge to remember vividly the slogans of his government’s flagship programmes – the ‘One District, One Factory,’ ‘One Village, One Dam’ and the ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ – since he considered them as descriptions of his government’s commitment to the rapid development and transformation of the nation’s industrial and agricultural sectors.
“We are determined to create the appropriate macroeconomic environment which will attract domestic and foreign investments into these, the real sectors of our economy. You have to help in that exercise,” was his charge to the new envoys.
President Akufo-Addo also urged the envoys to strive to develop cordial working relations with the professional Foreign Service officers they would find at their duty posts, as well as develop a good rapport with the Ghanaian communities in their respective countries of accreditation.
“Ghana is on very good and cordial terms with the countries to which you have been posted. Our bilateral relations span several decades, and our ties of co-operation remain strong. Your role is to deepen these even further, as well as to explore other areas of effective co-operation, which will inure to the mutual benefit of our respective populations,” he said.
He underscored, “You will recall at all times our objectives – to build a Ghana Beyond Aid, a Ghana which is self-reliant and exploiting its own resources, honestly, with hard work, enterprise and creativity, to build the free, prosperous Ghana of the dreams of the founding fathers of our nation.”
