Friday, October 8, 2010

Africa at 50 - We Can Do Better - Rawlings

In assessing the 50 years since most African countries became free from colonial rule, the former President of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings has said that Africans can do better.

Rawlings said this in a chat with journalists after the closing ceremony of the colloquium marking the 50th independence anniversary celebration of the African States by the ECOWAS Parliament in Abuja.
"While we can say we have made some progress, I sincerely believe we could have achieved a lot more than what we've done so far. If we can use the last 50 years to do some critical self analysis of our performances in the political, judicial, developmental, educational, and health sectors, quite frankly, facing the truth about our weaknesses and coming to terms with it, I believe we can do better," he elucidated.

According to him, "the point is to be able to face the truth about our weaknesses, to take each other a little bit more seriously and to be able to take on the world especially other more powerful countries from a position of strength and not persistently from a position of weakness".

Earlier at the end of the colloquium, the final resolution was read by Co-Chairperson of the Ad hoc committee responsible for organizing the colloquium, Hon. Madam Saran Sere Sereme.

Some of the recommendations by participants include organizing a forum on the African political thought to explore and define a pathway to democracy inspired by the cultural values of the African people and adapted to the continent's needs and realities, making community solidarity and complementarities a reality and effectively liberalising intra-community and intra-African trade by removing all barriers to free movement of African citizens and their goods.

Others are the speedy establishment and release of regional currencies into circulation, and the setting of a time frame for the introduction of the African currency, in addition to the establishment of an African monetary fund.


For More and Daily News at your doorstep, you can Subscribe to receive post updates by mail

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts with Thumbnails