Dr. Kofi Konadu Apraku, National Campaign Director of the Nana Akufo-Addo for President has observed that the NPP's campaign message based on tangible development and achievements over the last seven and-a-half years is what will propel the party to win the forthcoming elections. "We believe we have a strong message for the people based on tangible development and achievement of our government and this is what is going to win the election", he confidently told the Daily Graphic. In an interview in Accra on Saturday, Dr Apraku said the NPP had the credibility and track record to promise Ghanaians it would extend free education to the secondary level, as well as an extension of the National Health Insurance Scheme. "We have made education free at the primary level and we will do the same at the secondary level" he assured. He said the party's flag-bearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, was determined to continue the good and pragmatic policies of President John Kufour, whilst endeavouring to be his own man. The next NPP administration, he said, would place greater emphasis on structural transformation of the country to enable it to move into a first world economy within the generation. "A middle income country cannot be the ultimate goal for Ghana," he argued. "At best, it should be a short term goal because it is not beyond Ghana's ability to be among the comity of first world," he asserted. He said under an NPP administration, Ghana would consolidate her democracy and make sure it worked in such a way that Ghanaians would experience its value and reap the democratic dividends. Democracy, Dr Apraku said, was not abstract but tangible and gave the assurance that under the next phase of an NPP government, the frontiers of democracy would be expanded by shaping the nation in a direction that the society would not be led by radicals. "We want some degree of predictability in governance so that no government will write off the gains of democracy," he stated. He said it was not by chance that Ghana discovered oil under the NPP government, maintaining that investors were now very confident in the Ghanaian economy because "they are not dealing with a reckless government." For instance, he said the NPP government had managed the oil exploration programme effectively and "by focusing the GNPC on its core activity of finding oil rather than engaging in fanning, renting of rigs, development of salt and all other activities completely unrelated to its core activity, it had yielded the current results. He said there was now a great deal of international confidence in the government of the NPP and that had resulted in the doubling of Direct Foreign Investment over the last seven-and-a-half years. This, he further said, was because of the conducive socio-economic and political environment the NPP government had created. He said today, the international community was providing grants in an unprecedented manner to boost the Ghanaian economy, and using agriculture as a foundation stone and with emphasis on building an integrated aluminium company, petro-chemical industry, using the oil find, Ghana ought to develop. "That is why we believe we ought to modernise our society by injecting discipline, cleanliness and law and order ," he stated. He said quality infrastructure constituted part of the hallmarks of a modem society capable of engaging the attention of the rest of the world. Ghana, he said, now had the pillars to build upon and achieve the big dream, saying "the dream of the NPP is big but very realistic and achievable, which would require moving the nation in a united, coherent path as a means to bridging the development gap between Ghana and the developed world. Source: Daily Graphic