Addressing a parade of workers to commemorate this year’s May Day at the Black Star Square in Accra yesterday, the  President said: “My government is your government and we are listening to your concerns. We are determined that, together, we will find sustainable solutions. Ghana needs all its trained manpower to be at work.”

  ‘’The subject of nurses and teachers featured a lot in the recent election. There was the vexed question of their allowances. We promised to restore them and we have,” he said.

Privatisation of ECG

President Akufo-Addo also announced that the government had taken a second look at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) compact, driven by considerations that the reforms should not lead to involuntary job losses and should find a long-term resolution of the nation’s electricity problems.

In that regard, he said, the government had amended the terms of the concession agreement to require that Ghanaians owned at least 51 per cent of the concession and that there should be no involuntary lay-offs as a result of the concession.

Also, he said, the term of the concession would be reduced from 25 to 20 years.

“We believe that these amendments meet the aspirations of Ghanaians in protecting the jobs of workers and in assuring the control and viability of ECG,” the President added.

Office of Special Prosecutor

Touching on the issue of corruption, President Akufo-Addo reiterated his government’s commitment to use all available tools to fight the canker of corruption, “for we know how much it destroys our chances at progress and prosperity.

To that end, the President said, “The Office of the Special Prosecutor is going to be established so that the prosecution of corruption is taken out of political controversy, and thereby enhance the integrity of the rule of law.”

Ghana must turn over a new leaf

Under his tenure, President Akufo-Addo is urging Ghanaians to turn over a new leaf and a new page in the history of the nation.

“I want us to believe in our capacity to build a modern, developed, progressive nation, and free ourselves from the mindset of dependence, aid, charity and handouts. We can, together, build a new Ghanaian civilisation, where there is fair opportunity for all in education and health, where hard work, enterprise and creativity are rewarded, where there is an abundance of decent jobs with good pay, where there is a dignified retirement for the elderly, and where there is a social safety net for the vulnerable and disadvantaged,” he said.

The founders of Ghana, he said, chose the Black Star as part of our national colours because “they envisaged us as a shining example to the black people of the world; of what a free, dedicated, enterprising Ghanaian people can do to build a society, the equal of any, anywhere on the face of the planet. Let us be up and doing. Our destiny beckons.”