Nana Akufo-Addo, NPP presidential candidate for Election 2008 on Saturday, expressed gratitude to the people in Central Region for the peaceful manner in which they cast their ballots on December 7. He also expressed gratitude to all those who voted for him and urged those who did not, to endeavour to do so during the run-off to enable him put his plans to accelerate the country’s socio-economic development into reality. Nana Akufo-Addo made the expression during an interview on Radio Central in Cape Coast as part of his visit to the Central Region. He appealed to members and supporters of the NPP, especially foot soldiers who did not vote for the Party on December 7, because they were aggrieved to “let bygones be bygones” and turn out massively to vote during the run-off. Nana Akufo-Addo stressed that the battle is still on and that this is not the time to examine what went wrong or embark on a blame game. He said measures would be taken to address grievances within the Party later. He stressed that what was imperative now was for the Party to focus on and intensify its campaign in order to win more votes and clinch victory in the run-off. Nana Akufo-Addo told the people to vote for him since an NPP Government would be a better option since the various social interventions instituted by the Government such as the Capitation Grant, NHIS, and School Feeding Programme had done a lot to improve the social and economic conditions in the country. In an answer to a question whether it was a deliberate action by Government to reduce prices of petroleum products to win more votes in the run-off to ‘undercut’ the pledge by Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, NDC presidential candidate, that he would reduce the prices of such products when elected, Nana Akufo-Addo said that was not the case. Nana Akufo-Addo explained that the prices of petroleum products were regulated by an independent body, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) depending on the trend of the prices of crude oil on the world market and said ”I therefore, find it surprising that Prof. Mills should make such a promise unless he intended to abolish the NPA and act unilaterally.” During the parliamentary election on December 7, the NPP lost eight of the 16 seats it had in the Region to the NDC which hitherto had only two seats. Source: GNA