With barely two months for the ruling New Patriotic Party to elect its flagbearer for Elections 2008, thousands of sympathizers and supporters of one of the 18 presidential aspirants, Hon. Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, yesterday thronged the Oyoko Social Centre near Koforidua in the Eastern Region to witness the launch of the aspirant's campaign. According to a report carried by The Ghanaian Observer, as the teeming crowd hailed and rained appellations on him and screamed "Action Man" amidst drumming and dancing, Hackman Owusu-Agyemang responded with a wave of his hands. Speaking at the launching, Mr. Owusu-Agyemang stated that he has chalked enough experience both as a party man and with a global perspective to deal with the challenges of the country at the moment, saying; "I believe that my credentials assume gargantuan proportion in this regard." He asserted that he had demonstrated for the past years his commitment to the party as no other party member had done. "I have stoically stood by the party in thick or thin whether in the acquisition of our original Kokomlemle headquarters or the resolution of the infamous Concordia ventures saga or the acquisition of vehicles or the setting up of the party Club House or resourcing of the party," he stressed. On what he will deliver as President, Hon. Owusu-Agyemang noted that when he becomes President he will seek to reinforce the relative social and economic stability that has been put in place by the government of President John Agyekum Kufuor. “We will pursue proactive economic development policies that will lead to concrete, accelerated, incremental and sustained economic growth," he added. According to him, his government will urgently establish a national development think tank drawn from government, private industry, academia, youth, trade unions and all sides of the political divide. The think tank, he continued will be involved in ideas generation and would basically focus on doable ideas leading to policy formation and implementation. Hon. Owusu-Agyemang, MP for New Juaben, also former Minister of Works, Housing and Water Resources as well as Foreign Affairs, maintained that his government will also fish for intellectual entrepreneurs who are incubators of practical and innovative ideas and also create a centre for creative ideas for the people to professionally assess the feasibility of ideas for vigorous follow up irrespective of political affiliations. The Former Foreign Minister said "we will strengthen the financial system for it to be able to finance our nation's accelerated growth agenda with abundant and cheap credit; we will continue rebuilding the nation's economic and social infrastructure to support accelerated growth that put cash into the pockets of the average worker." On education, he pledged that his government would reinforce the education reforms in order that the youth in the country will be challenged to develop their God-given talents and equipped with nation building skills and included in the wealth creation process. Mr. Owusu-Agyemang stressed that the 21st Century calls for greater collaboration amongst government, private industry and high education for complex adaptive research and development projects in the fields of technology, agriculture, health, science and engineering. Under his government, he promised to review the possibility of National Service personnel doing at least a greater part of their service with the military in residence to inculcate the spirit of patriotism and discipline in them. "As President I will pursue programmes and policies that will empower citizens by pushing control out of the bureaucracy to the community to vigorously monitor and evaluate the performance of service providers to ensure accountability and equality of service." Source: The Ghanaian Observer