He is said to be employing about 40,000 people, directly and indirectly, but the 2012 Presidential candidate of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Paa Kwesi Nduom has said “politics” even ruined his huge ambitions to do more. The businessman on the Citi Breakfast Show pointed out that though he “went outside the country, gained some skills, gained some finances and wanted to come back to Ghana and apply” what he had learnt, “politics collapsed everything” he tried to do. According to him,since there have been several attempts by various political stakeholders to destroy his business, he has resolved to “engage in politics in the right way to try and prevent people who will want to use politics to collapse other people’s initiatives and other people’s efforts.” Dr. Nduom revealed that his crusade against the appointment of MMDCEs by the President forms part of efforts to ensure that politics is done in the right way. He further justified his stance on the appointment, arguing that the electorates should be given the power to elect their MMDCEs in order to promote variety and independence. “I have been fighting and crusading to ensure that we can elect our own district,municipal, metropolitan chief executives instead of a President sitting in Accra to appoint the people. MMDCEs are appointed, what happens is that there is a lot more concentration instead of the politics of winning power.” Dr Nduom, who is widely acclaimed as a successful business man, is the CEO of Groupe Nduom which has subsidiaries in the financial, hospitality among others.
FCUBE project The politician also declared the PPP’s commitment to still pursue the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) policy despite the Supreme Court’s decision to throw the case out. Article 25(1)(a) of the 1992 constitution indicates that “All persons shall have the right to equal educational opportunities and facilities and with a view to achieving the full realization of that right-basic education shall be free, compulsory and available to all”. Government has over the years introduced a number of interventions including the School Feeding Programme, capitation grant, the distribution of free exercise books and lately the provision of free school uniforms to support this initiative but Dr. Ndoum believes there are some sections of the policy which government and educational authorities in Ghana have overlooked. He told Citi Breakfast Show host, Bernard Avle that he will continue to fight for the policy to be fully implemented so that “every Ghanaian child regardless of where they come from, will be educated by the state.”
Source – Citifm
