Inaugural Speech of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo

 Mr Speaker,

The Ghanaian people give thanks to Almighty God for the blessings, favour and grace He continues to bestow on them. Exactly a month ago, that is 7^th December last year, 2016, we, the people of Ghana, in all serenity and dignity, exercised our democratic franchise freely to elect a President and Parliament of our Republic. We are met here today to give effect to the outcome of that exercise. In accordance with our republican custom, I, having been declared the winner of the presidential contest on 9^th December, 2016, by the returning officer, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Charlotte Osei, have taken the oath of the high office of President of the Republic, in the presence of the newly sworn Vice President, His Excellency Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, and the newly elected Speaker of Parliament, the Rt. Hon. Prof. Michael Oquaye, an oath administered by the Chief Justice, Her Ladyship Georgina Theodora Wood, before the elected representatives of the people assembled in this 7^th Parliament of the 4^th Republic. This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Our nation is honoured by the presence, at this solemn ceremony of investiture, of leaders and representatives of friendly countries across the globe, in particular those of the sister nations of our regional body, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and of our continental body, the African Union. I salute the Chairperson of the Authority of Heads of State and Governments of the AU, His Excellency Idriss Déby, President of the Republic of Chad. I salute the Chairperson of the Authority of Heads of State and Governments of ECOWAS, the historic figure, Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia; our special guest of honour, His Excellency Alassane Dramane Ouattara, President of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, and we thank him for his excellent speech; His Excellency Muhammadu Buhari, President of the Federal Republic of mighty Nigeria; His Excellency Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal; His Excellency Faure Gnassingbé, President of the Republic of Togo; His Excellency Alpha Condé, President of the Republic of Guinea Conakry; His Excellency Patrice Talon, President of the Republic of Benin; His Excellency Ernest Bai Koroma, President of the Republic of Sierra Leone; His Excellency Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, President of the Republic of Mali; His Excellency Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, President of Burkina Faso. We are grateful also for the presence of His Excellency Teodoro Obiang Nguema, President of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea; His Excellency Ali Bongo, President of the Republic of Gabon; and His Excellency Edgar Lungu, President of the Republic of Zambia. To them and the representatives of all the other friendly nations who are here, and former presidents and leaders, I say ‘akwaaba’, our famous word of welcome.

I have, at the outset, to thank sincerely our departing President, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, for his service to our nation. He stepped into the breach of national leadership at a delicate moment in the country’s history, with the death in office, for the first time, of a sitting president, the late Prof. John Evans Atta Mills. He has since steered the ship of state with conviction. His elegant, dignified acceptance of the verdict of the people on 7^th December, 2016, will, without doubt, receive the approval of history, for it has contributed significantly to the process of democratic consolidation in Ghana. I wish him and his family well.
For myself, I am in the unique position of being able to draw on the wisdom and experience of three former Presidents of the Republic, their Excellencies Jerry John Rawlings, John Agyekum Kufuor and John Dramani Mahama. They represent the continuity of the institutions of our Republic, for which we thank God.

Mr. Speaker, I am deeply humbled by the exceptional mandate and extraordinary show of confidence that the Ghanaian people have conferred on my party, the New Patriotic Party, and on my modest person. I am determined to do all in my power to accomplish the tasks of the mandate and justify their confidence. I will not let you, the people of Ghana, down.
We have a proud heritage. We are the heirs of John Mensah Sarbah, Joseph Caseley Hayford, George Pa Grant, R.S. Blay, Joseph Boakye Danquah, Emmanuel Obetsebi Lamptey, Edward Akufo-Addo, William Ofori-Atta, Cobbina Kesse, Ernest Ako Adjei, Kwame Nkrumah, Komla Agbeli Gbedema, Kojo Botsio, S.D. Dombo, Kofi Abrefa Busia, Baffuor Osei Akoto and others, who taught us that fidelity to principles, courage, patience, resilience and collective action do yield results. They fought with intelligence, guts, steely determination and patriotism to liberate our land and reclaim our worth as human beings. Their love for country continues to inspire generations of us to commit our lives to the search for an enduring democratic legacy for Ghana. It is not for nothing that when our forebears established the Ghanaian nation, they chose “Freedom and Justice” as our motto. Our generation has to give meaning to this motto.   
On March 6, in a few weeks’ time, Ghana will attain 60 years as an independent nation. I suspect that those early nationalists would be disappointed, if they came today and saw the level of development we have achieved in 60 years of independence.

Our journey has had some highs and unfortunately many lows. Since we accepted a consensus on how we should be governed with the onset of the Fourth Republic, we have performed more creditably. It is within this period of 24 years that Ghana has witnessed a consistent period of development.

Sixty years after attaining nationhood, we no longer have any excuses for being poor. I stand here today, humbled beyond measure for the opportunity to lead this country at this time and take us to a higher level in our development.

The words of JB Danquah, one of the founding fathers of the Ghanaian nation, are compelling. He said as far back as 1960 that the duty of government should be “to liberate the energies of the people for the growth of a property owning democracy in this land, with right to life, freedom and justice, as the principles to which the government and the laws of the land should be dedicated in order specifically to enrich life, property and liberty of each and every citizen.” 


We have an exuberant and young, growing population that wants the best of what the world has to offer and will not settle for “Third World” or “developing world” standards. We have an adventurous people who are in a hurry for success. I have no doubt that the talents, energies, sense of enterprise and innovation of the Ghanaian can be harnessed to make Ghana the place where dreams come true.

It took us a while, but the consensus on multi-party constitutional rule has been established, and, for the third time, we have had a peaceful transfer of power from a governing party to an opposition one. We have done it without any fuss and it is now part of what we do as a people.

Kofi Abrefa Busia, Prime Minister of the Progress Party government of the 2^nd Republic, and one of the great Ghanaians, said in these eloquent words: “We regard politics as an avenue of service to our fellow men. We hold that political power is to be exercised to make life nobler and happier. Our success or failure should be judged by the quality of the individual, by his knowledge, his skills, his behaviour as a member of society, the standard of living he is able to enjoy and by the degree of harmony and brotherliness in our community life as a nation.”

We should move on to deepen our democracy. It is time to make sure that we have a true separation of powers between the various arms of government. Our Parliament, the legislative arm of government, must grow into its proper role as an effective machinery for accountability and oversight of the Executive, and not be its junior partner.

The Ghanaian Parliament, the Ghanaian Member of Parliament, must stand out as institutions that represent all that we hold dear and citizens can take pride in.

Our judiciary must inspire confidence in the citizens, so we can all see the courts as the ultimate arbitres when disputes arise, as they would. A Ghanaian judge must be a reassuring presence and the epitome of fairness.

We have worked with our national constitution for 24 years and we now know the areas that require change. I believe a consensus is emerging that we must decentralize more. We must devolve more power with corresponding resources to the base of our political system and to our people, in the regions and communities. We must trust the individual and collective wisdom and good sense of our people.

We must restore integrity in public life. State coffers are not spoils for the party that wins an election, but resources for the country’s social and economic development. I shall protect the public purse by insisting on value-for-money in all public transactions. Public service is just that – service and not an avenue for making money.  Money is to be made in the private sector, not the public. Measures will be put in place to ensure this.

We must create wealth and restore happiness to our nation. We can only do this when we have an educated and skilled population that is capable of competing in the global economy. We must expand our horizons and embrace science and technology as critical tools for our development.
We believe that the business of government is to govern.  Ours is to set fair rules.  We will provide vision and direction and shine the light down the path of our entrepreneurs and farmers. We are, indeed, counting on a vibrant private sector to drive growth and create jobs. 
We will stimulate the creative juices of innovators. We will bring back to life the adventurer in you. It is time to imagine and to dream again; time to try that business idea again. We will reduce taxes to recover the momentum of our economy. The doors of Ghana are open again. The shutters are up again. There could not be a better opportunity to “Make in Ghana”, and to make it in Ghana. GHANA IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS AGAIN!

We will build a confident Ghana which is united, at peace with itself and takes pride in its diversity. 
We will rekindle the spirit that made Ghana the leading light on the African continent, and make our conditions deserving of that accolade. We will work with our neighbours and friends on the continent to enhance peace, democracy and political stability in our part of the world. We will reassert vigorously the Pan African vocation to which our nation has been dedicated. Integration of our region and of our continent will be a strategic objective of Ghanaian policy.

It will not be easy. We have no illusions whatsoever about the enormity of the task that we face, but I know that Ghanaians at home and abroad will rise to the occasion; they always do.
It will require sacrifice, but it can be done. Others have done it. So can we. Our best days still lie ahead. Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths. Ghanaians have ever been a restless, questing, hopeful people. And we must bring to our task today the vision and will of those who came before us.

The Ghanaian people have summoned the change we celebrate today. They have raised their voices in an unmistakable chorus. They have cast their votes without equivocation and have forced the change. Now we must do the work the season demands. To that work, I now turn with all the authority of my office. I ask the Legislature and Judiciary to join with me. But no President, no Parliament, no Government can undertake this mission all by itself.

Fellow citizens, you must be at the centre of the change. The change we have voted for will have to start with each of us as individuals. We can start with little changes in our own individual attitudes and practices. The change can and should start now and with us as individuals.    
I ask you to be citizens: citizens, not spectators; citizens, not subjects; responsible citizens building your communities and our nation. Let us work until the work is done. Holy Scripture in Galatians 6:9 says "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."

I assure you, my fellow citizens, who have entrusted me with this mandate, that I will advance my convictions with civility, I will serve the public interest with courage, I will speak for greater justice as well as compassion, and I will call for responsibility and I will live it, as well.

This is my solemn pledge.

I see exciting times ahead. The rule of law will be the underlying tenet of our lives; and the law will be applicable to all of us, and not just some.
We will have to work hard, harder than we have ever done before; and the hard work will be done by all of us, and not just some. There will be discipline in all sectors of our lives; and this applies to all of us, not just some.

Our public service will be accorded the dignity and respect it deserves, and be made to attract the bright young people it needs.
We acknowledge there will always be the need for a safety net for the vulnerable in our society, as in all other societies. Our nation will work when the marginalised and vulnerable are catered for and treated with respect.      

Our elderly people will be recognised for their roles in building Ghana and assured of care in the dusk of their lives.
We should all recognise the danger we face by the alarming degradation of our environment and work to protect our water bodies, our forests, our lands and the oceans. We should learn and accept that we do not own the land, but hold it in trust for generations yet unborn and, therefore, have a responsibility to take good care of it and all it contains.

Ghana’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah, Osagyefo, said at the end of 1957, the year of our independence: “We shall measure our progress by the happiness which our people take in being able to manage their own affairs.”

Since March 6, 1957, we all say as a matter of routine that we are Ghanaians. It is time to define what being a Ghanaian ought to mean.

Being a Ghanaian must stand for something more than the holder of a birth certificate or a certain passport.
Being a Ghanaian must put certain responsibilities on each one of us.
Calling yourself a Ghanaian must mean you have signed up to a certain definable code and conduct. Being a Ghanaian puts an obligation on each one of us to work at building a fair, prosperous and happy nation.
And calling yourself a Ghanaian must mean we look out for each other.
There should be no higher praise than to be able to say I AM A GHANAIAN.

I thank the Almighty that I am able to say with pride, I am a Ghanaian. A new dawn has arisen in Ghana, which will enable us to build a new Ghanaian civilization which will be the beacon of Africa and the wonder of the world. I thank you all, my fellow citizens, for making me the president of this beautiful country.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and may God bless our homeland Ghana and make her great and strong. And may God bless us all and Mother Africa.

Nana Addo is president, what will change?

I am no lawyer, but it's easy for me to identify certain loopholes within the Ghanaian constitution. When someone criticizes the government or a structure within the government, what you almost always hear is that Rome wasn't built in day. I keep asking myself if due to that we should also take thousands of years to build our country to the level we all aspire and hope to see.
I believe that if  Rome wasn't built in a day, that leaves the younger generation much more room to even develop much faster than Rome took to develop. This is because they have a precedent to follow and right the wrongs that were identified within. Essentially, they should take less than what it took Rome  to develop.
We live in a proclaimed democracy where the head of the executive dictates virtually everything. Forget about the other arms of government. They are invariably disregarded in relevant matters within our democratic dispensation. Sometimes, I just wonder why our system of government is still referred to as democracy because I don't see it as such.
And I concur with what the Albert Kan Dapaah once said in a radio interview with Bernard K. Avle that "parliamentary democracy without checks and balance is worse than military rule." Ghana is a country where all bills passed by parliament always emanates from the executive branch, with parliament just rubber-stamping the bills with little or no checks at all.

Well, subsequent to the fall of the John Dramani Mahama's administration in the just ended elections, the newly elected parliamentarians are pledging to do the right thing by effectively checking the activities of the executive. Now, whether they  are just pondering to great beast or actually determined stands to be judged at the end of their first term which ends four years from now. Ghanaians have very high expectations of the elected government. From the 2016 December elections which saw a siting president lose elections in the counrty's histroy since the beginning of the 4th republic, it is clear that the citizenry is constantly getting involved in governance and is not ready to accept mediocre from any government that can not accomplish its goals. In Nana Addo's inaugural speech he  further charged the people not to be spectators but citizens and I am sure that when it comes to that, the people will stand up to the challenge especially the opposition who received much criticism when they were in power and also work hard. Further, he has promised to boost the private sector by reducing taxes and other relevant measures to drive the sector. Not forgetting the pledge he has made to the people to fight corruption with his insistence that if people want to make money from government coffers  then they should move to the private sector.
He should however not forget that Ghanaians will hold him accountable for every action and inaction in his government.

How cybercrime affects your profits.

Over the years, the computation of intellectual property has been hard to evaluate. However, some ways of determining the value will comprise estimating the worth of it on the market or determining the capability of such property and correctly evaluating it value on the market.

Other relevant means maybe computation of value of inputs into the said product. Evident is this quote from the Economic impact of cybercrime and cyber espionage. “The international Maritime Bureau estimated the annual cost of piracy as somewhere between 1billion US dollars and 16billionin 2005. To put these figures in context, the annual value of maritime trade in 2005 was $7.8 trillion, which means piracy cost equalled at most 0.02% of the total.”

Cybercrime, what the heck is that?

Cybercrime, has the prefix cyber which means internet or an activity relating to internet. Hence by derivation it basically means activities over the internet that are considered as criminal. Espionage on the other hand denotes spying. Someone may as well ask how spying cab be illegal and therefore criminal. For a simple and brute answer, I would say invading the privacy of an individual or groups is illegal in most countries and violates their fundamental human rights to privacy. But of course, there are some countries that disregard this and spy on its citizens with the excuse of protecting them.

How does it occur?

Just as criminal activity occurs in any human setting or community, the internet cannot be an exception. It can occur in a number of ways. Some of which may include

1.      Extortion gimmicks; individuals hack into website sand demand ransom. They threaten the owners or companies involved to extort money from them to carry out other insidious activities, some countries regard some these issues as terrorism especially when it involves powerful countries.

2.      Deny relevant services; some of these people who engage in cybercrime do what they do best to simply stage a protest. As happened in Estonia 2007. Imagine the loss of revenue that will clamp down online retail businesses should their services be denied to their customers by unwarranted third parties.

3.      Stealing financial information or customers or proprietary property. These individuals engage in these activities to filch financial information for numerous purposes which mostly include business confidential information such as trade secrets and private intellectual properties. In extreme cases, sensitive business negotiations data or even insider stock trading information are accessed.

This palpably is the most evil form of hacking which invariably harms financial markets, enables individuals or groups of individuals to manipulate stock prices or automated trading systems, peddle false information that disturbs the market price.

4.      Installation of virus for monitoring and damage; most of us are fond of downloading so many things that we are not exactly sure of its security implications. Hackers being sneaky for their own nefarious dealings explore this vulnerability. We download things that later turns out to be virus. Then it infiltrates our files and monitors the activities that goes on. Most often, they not only monitor you and your company but manipulate data, and eventually damages them.

How does this affect my business?

The implications of these activities are numerous and varied. Among them are the following. We all know that in competitive market, consumers are good at searching for the best lowest price with great satisfaction. Therefore if a company incurs so much in protecting itself from such criminal activities. These cost would be passed on to the consumers and that would in turn affect their gains due to competitions. That is not to say that companies must not make an effort to protect itself.

Loss of sales; In December 2010, PayPal was attacked and lost huge sum of revenue when customers decided not to transact any business with them because they believed that by continuing to engage in business activity activity with a firm that had being involved in a cyber-attack will equally make them (the customers) vulnerable.

Damage of reputation; when PayPal was attacked, its customers deserted it not because they had changed their mode of delivery of service but because it reputation had been tarnished. The trust the customers had had being broken and that took them a long time and considerable effort coupled with huge cost to build it. The respect the brand commanded at the time was disregarded and I believe no company would want to fall prey to this canker. One can imagine the high cost of repair that would be needed here.

Loss of financial assets or intellectual property and business confidential information

Supposed a company is attacked, the consequence are mostly huge and disheartening. Among them maybe its financial assets or intellectual property that it hopes to bring to the market in the near future. Confidential information of customers could be exposed and they would be susceptible to these hackers as well. Information from Bloomberg.com specifically by Keith Collins indicates the information that was taken when numerous cooperate institutions were hacked. Below are the firms and their various information.

ü  Premera Blue Cross. Announced: 03/18/2015. The company, which discovered the breach in January, says hackers may have accessed Social Security numbers, bank accounts and medical information. Private company, N/A .11Million records

ü  Anthem (Announced: 02/05/2015) Sources familiar with the investigation tell Bloomberg News that the details of this attack include “fingerprints” of a nation-state, and that China is the main suspect. Stock fell 1.1% 80Million records such as Social Security numbers, Email addresses and Physical addresses

ü  Sony Announced: 11/25/2014. Hackers broke into its network and exposed employment and salary records, documents and embarrassing private emails between Hollywood executives. Stock fell 1.1% 47,000 records such as Proprietary information and Employee details

ü  Home Depot Announced: 09/02/2014 The Company said 56 million payment cards had been stolen, and later disclosed 53 million e-mail addresses had also been pilfered. Stock fell 2.4% 109Million records such as Credit card numbers and email addresses.

ü  JPMorgan Announced: 08/27/2014 .The biggest U.S. bank said a data breach affected 76 million households and 7 million small businesses. Stock fell 0.7% 83Milion records such as Email addresses and Physical addresses

ü  EBay Announced: 05/21/2014 in a massive attack, hackers took customers’ personal information, affecting up to 145 million active users. Stock fell 0.7% 145Milion records including Email addresses, Physical addresses and Login credentials

ü  Target Announced: 12/13/2013 though announced at the end of 2013, the effects of this breach carried into 2014. Target said its U.S. sales were "meaningfully weaker" after the data theft was disclosed. Stock fell 0.3% 110Milion records including Credit card numbers.

These are just but few victims. There could also be high cost of effective security, and sometimes creation of competition from people who lay their hands on proprietary information or intellectual property.

The world is moving towards the age of information and technology, everything happens by the touch of a screen or click of a button. The level of privacy continues to decline at amazingly rapid rate. Hence just beware.

RAMPANT STRIKES OF PEOPLE WHO DESERVE BETTER.

Over the years the nation has being crippled with harsh economic situations that are continually disabling people financially, physically and psychologically.

We are all hoping for better days ahead but for how long shall we wait?

The people of Ghana have endured enough and hence cannot bear anymore hardship.

People are painfully wailing but what is the leadership of the country doing about it?

It sad and awful to hear that majority of Ghanaians cannot even afford three square meals a day.

(picture credits:bbci.co.uk)

It is no news that corruption, economic mismanagement and poor leadership have now become the nation’s major hallmark.

How disgusting it was to know that the Justice Apau Judgment Debt commission  unveiled the enormous judgment debt that has plagued the government as a result of utter negligence and failure of some public officials to safeguard the nation against vampires that seeks to suck taxpayers’ blood from their veins.

On June, 30 2014. It was reported that the government was to be hit with judgment debt of GH¢135.5 million.  How can this be?

Far from these, it is reported that the president has distributed free vehicles for chiefs under this dire economic situation whereas those monies could have being used for other relevant projects that are collapsing.

I wonder the road where they will be driving those cars because most of the roads in country are in extremely deplorable state.

Aside all these problems, the government found no fault in airlifting of USD3.5 million to Brazil for our national players.

An act which made the country to become an object of ridicule around the world.

Since the beginning of the year 2014, the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) started the adjustment of utility prices through the Automatic Adjustment Formula which according to them was driven by key variables which includes the; Ghana cedi USD exchange rate where the cedi is known to be depreciating at a faster rate, inflation, price of crude oil and natural gas, fuel mix, generation mix(hydro and thermal), power purchase cost, demand forecast(currently 12% per annum and still rising),chemical cost(water) and electricity cost(water) .

Recent hikes in petroleum prices which not long ago led to shortages of fuel in the country cannot be overlooked.

This has consequently led to increase in prices of public transport fares making the lives of ordinary Ghanaian a living hell.

Aside all these policies and implementation that the Bank Of Ghana instituted the cedi continues to fall, there continues to be delayed and unpaid allowances  increasingly  affecting the pockets of Ghanaians and in this  regard the organized labor decided to organize a nationwide strike and demonstration against what they described as rising economic conditions.

The organized labor which constitutes the Trade Union Congress and the Ghana Federation of Labor declared a nationwide strike on Friday July 18, 2014 with the intent to hit the streets in protest on Thursday July 24, 2014.

The protest was set to begin at the Obra spot at the Kwame Nkrumah circle in Accra through the Trade Union Congress office to the ministries and to the Black star  square where they presented the petition to the Minister of Employment and Labour relations Haruna Iddrisu.

“while we thank them, I will convey their specific concerns to the higher authority”, said by Haruna Iddrisu whiles he received the petition from the spokesperson of Organized labour Dr. Kofi Asamoah.

Similar protest where organized in all ten (10) regional capitals of the country.

It is important to know that before this nationwide strike, similar demonstrations had been organized over recent months. Notable amongst them are the “occupy flagstaff house demo” and the “Red Friday”

Smaller unions have also embarked on demonstrations pertaining to similar agitations.

Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG) for instance was already on strike for two weeks before the nationwide strike and even after the nationwide strike the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) has declared an indefinite strike until their research and book allowances are paid.

As to whether the grievances of these people will be addressed still remained uncertain, not to talk of the recent strikes and agitations that has being going on.

The country is still ailing, with its numerous deplorable roads across the 

(Photo credits:kessbenfm.com)

country that does not improve the economic conditions of the country in any way. Now, the heat on the floor is the strike of the Civil and Local Government Service Staff Association of Ghana (CLOGSSAG) who few days ago declared a strike to force government to pay its members their interim premium allowances, and has refused to rescind the decision until the demands are met. If the whole machinery of government decides to strike owing to failed leadership and incapability. How can the country progress.