Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo, a former Finance Minister and one of the Presidential Aspirants of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said he is the only candidate fit to challenge Prof. Atta-Mills, the former Vice-President and Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress. In a Daily Guide report, Mr. Osafo-Maafo was quoted as saying that Prof. Mills would be panic stricken if he is elected as the NPP’s flagbearer, for the 2008 elections. Osafo-Maafo said this during a tour of the Brong Ahafo Region to solicit for votes of would-be delegates to the forthcoming delegates’ conference of the party on December 22, 2007 to elect a flagbearer. Speaking at Bechem, Duayaw Nkwanta, Berekum and Sunyani at separate meetings, he told delegates that even though he believes that most of the other candidates were winnable, he was exceptional, and his election as flagbearer would send shivers down the spine of the professor, whom he said was his schoolmate. The Daily Guide quoted Osafo-Maafo as saying that, “I am the only person who can look Mills in the eyes and tell him, look Fiifi, you were the chairman for the Economic Council during your time as a Vice-President. You brought inflation to 41 percent whilst leaving office. I took over from you as finance minister and brought inflation down to 11.8 percent.” The former finance minister, who also once held the Education, Youth and Sports portfolio, said Mills cannot deny the fact that while he (Osafo-Maafo) left $1,425.6 billion at the time he was leaving the Finance Ministry, the NDC government under which Mills served as Vice-President, left a foreign exchange reserve of only $233 million. He added, that he was not called “Oyeadeeyie” for nothing and that the good people of Ghana saw his excellent performance during his tenure at the Finance Ministry as well as the Education, Youth and Sports Ministry and tagged him “Oyeadeeyie”, (meaning a person who causes transformation). Osafo-Maafo, noted that judging from these facts and many others Mills might even run away if he hears that he has been declared winner of the NPP flagbearership race. He expressed confidence that he would win the race and become the next president of Ghana, and noted that his vision was to make Ghana a service centre for West Africa. According to Osafo-Maafo, Ghana could get a huge foreign exchange reserve through salt production, adding Nigeria alone trades in a total of US$5.6 billion worth of salt with Brazil annually. “If we target even 10 percent of that, it is a lot of money. We are not able to produce salt in large quantities even though only Ghana and Senegal could produce salt in West Africa, land litigation has become our bane.” He described Ghana as a young beautiful maiden whom his rival the NDC have manhandled, therefore, she should not be given back to the NDC in marriage because the NDC would only destroy her future. Source: Daily Guide