I Don’t Tell Lies – Nana Addo

President Nana Akufo-Addo says the government he leads is fulfilling the campaign promises he made during the year 2000 electoral campaign and that he has not deceived Ghanaians.

“We are two and a 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,” Nana Akufo-Addo noted.

He continued: “I know that my opponents will be saying something else, but that is their right. God willing, on the December 7 2020, the day of accountability, we will know who is telling the truth”.

Nana Akufo-Addo made the comments on in his address to the Ghanaian community resident in France. He indicated that, over the course of the last two and a half years in office, his government has, indeed, fulfilled a considerable number of the promises made.

He commented on the announcement, made by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union that Ghana has been chosen as host country for the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA):

“Maybe some of the grey beards can remember 30 years ago, at the beginning of the common market, what France was like, and what it is like today… there is no doubt about the massive impact that the European Union has had on the lives of European people, in terms of increasing their economic circumstances, and we believe that the African Continental Free Trade Area is going to do the same for us.”

President Akufo-Addo said the AfCFTA will among other positives, give Africa “ 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.”

The AfCFTA, he noted further, will increase considerably intra-African trade, create millions of jobs for African youths, and help the continent develop its enterprises.

The siting of the AfCFTA Secretariat in Ghana, according to President Akufo-Addo, is a great opportunity for the country, especially as Ghana has been at the centre of pan-African matters.

“It is going to mean that all the ancillary activities of AfCFTA are going to be Accra- and Ghana-centered. It is also a recognition of the contribution we have made to the struggle of pan-Africanism, and for the decolonization of the continent,” he added.

President Akufo-Addo also paid tribute to the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, who first moved the motion for the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area in 2011.

“Every country should have its goals and policies that it follows successfully, leader after leader. When the national goals are set, all of us who come to occupy the seat of office should then be obliged to follow it,” the President noted.