Political stability, gift of political discipline – Prez Mills

President John Evans Atta Mills on Thursday called on political leaders to exhibit politcal maturtity and avoid statements and actions that would undermine the politcal stability and peace of the nation.
He stated in the 2011 State of the Nation Address to Parliament in Accra that political stability was a gift of political discipline, and urged those in leadership to avoid inflammatory statements to dislodge the national peace.
“This is not time that anyone who has the interest of the country at heart would beat war drums,” President Mills said in the midst of heckling from the main minority New Patriotic Party (NPP).
He called for the exercise of good judgment in the making of statements bordered on the security of the nation, and called for work to be expedited on passing the National Broadcasting Bill into law to check the barrage of unwholesome information that harangued the airwaves.
According President Mills, he as President would not sit idly by for any person to cause chaos for personal gains, adding that Government would build a solid structure on the solid foundations it had provided to realise the Better Ghana promised Ghanaians.
President Mills stressed that his Administration would stay on course because there were no short cuts, adding that Ghana managed to maintain a respectable growth rate in 2010 and was poised to maintain a higher level this year.
He said the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority, one of the manifesto pledges of the ruling National Democratci Congress (NDC) had already commenced work and a donors’ conference was in the offing to commit funds to the Authority’s operations.
President Mills announced that Government was proposing additional special zones which would be under the Office of the President.
The zones would include the Western Corridor Development Authority, which would subsume the Central Region Development Commission (CEDECOM), Eastern Corridor Development Authority, which would have a mandate over the Volta Region and Afram Plains, and the Forest Belt Development Authority, comprising Eastern, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo Regions.
President Mills announced that a special team had been put up to ensure urgent follow up to the plegdes of substantial support following his trip to China and Japan last year.
He allayed the fears that the support was rather too big, adding “it is time for this country to think big and positive.”
GNA