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Press Release
NPP
May 20, 2015
AKUFO-ADDO MEETS
GERMAN CHANCELLOR, DR. ANGELA MERKEL
The 2016 presidential candidate of the New
Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo,
on Tuesday, April 19, 2015, met briefly with
German Chancellor, Dr Angela Merkel at the
Deutscher Bundestag (the German Parliament),
in Berlin, the capital of Germany.
The brief discussion between the two leaders
took place prior to the holding of a meeting
of the parliamentary group of the Christian
Democratic Union (CDU), at the Bundestag.
Nana Akufo-Addo, who is currently on the 4th
day of his working visit to Germany, used
the opportunity to renew acquaintances and
also congratulate the German Chancellor on
her re-election in September 2013, marking
her 3rd term in office as the leader of
Europe's biggest economic power. On her
part, Dr. Merkel, who is also the leader of
the CDU, thanked Nana Akufo-Addo for his
visit and wished the NPP leader well ahead
of the December 2016 election.
Prior to the meeting with the German
Chancellor, Nana Akufo-Addo met with Mr.
Volkmar Klein MdB, budgetary and financial
policy spokesman of the CDU parliamentary
group at the Bundestag.
He also called on Ambassador Georg Schmidt,
Regional Director for sub-Saharan Africa and
the Sahel of the Federal Foreign Office, in
his final meeting of the day.
Issues bordering on the state of the
Ghanaian economy, the consolidation of the
democratic credentials of Ghana, as well as
the importance of regional integration as a
tool to for the rapid development of the
West African region, were discussed.
On the consolidation of Ghana’s democracy,
Nana Akufo-Addo stressed the need for the
compilation of a new voter’s register, as a
credible voter’s register is of the utmost
importance ahead of the 2016 election.
“We are not interested in playing the blame
game. We are only interested in doing what
is right for our democracy. The Ghanaian
election should not be a West African
election. We want the Electoral Commission
to listen to the growing calls for a
credible register and do what is required
after to achieve that,” he said.
On regional integration, Nana Akufo-Addo
stated that Ghana, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire
and Senegal can do for the West African
region what Germany, France and the Benelux
countries did for Europe, by leading the
push for economic integration.
He stressed that without regional
integration, West Africa’s small economies,
other than Nigeria’s, will struggle for
relevance, “denying ourselves the capacity
to compete in this increasingly competitive
global environment.”
Nana Akufo-Addo also participated in the
celebration, on 19th May, 2015, of Africa
Day in Berlin, where the keynote speaker was
the former Nigerian President, H.E. Olusegun
Obasanjo. He exchanged warm greetings there
with Ghana’s Ambassador to Germany, Ms. Akua
Sena Dansoa, both of whom had been Members
of Parliament at the same time.
On Monday, April 18, 2015, Nana Akufo-Addo,
under the auspices of the Konrad Adenauer
Stiftung (KAS), met with Mr. Klaus Schuler,
who is the Federal Manager of the CDU and
who has also doubled as the campaign manager
for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 3 successive
electoral victories. At this meeting were
Mr. Frank Priess, Deputy Head of European
and International Co-operation of the Konrad
Adenauer Stiftung, and Mme. Andrea Ostheimer,
head of the department for sub-Saharan
Africa at KAS.
Early that same day, Nana Akufo-Addo paid a
courtesy call on Mr. Hartwig Fischer, the
President of Deutscher Afrika Stiftung
(German African Foundation).
On Wednesday, prior to his departure for
Amsterdam, Nana Akufo-Addo met with Mr.
Charles Huber MdB, the well-known actor of
Senegalese descent, who is a CDU Member of
the Bundestag.
According to the MP, a member of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs at the
Bundestag, Africa needs a change of
perspective and should not be overly
dependent on aid from developed countries.
He stressed that the time is right for
African economies to depart from being mere
exporters of raw materials, and embrace
"value added policies." The development of a
genuine regional market, through regional
integration, he added, is one of the surest
ways to bring about sustained prosperity in
the region.
Nana Akufo-Addo, who has over the years been
an ardent advocate of the policies being
espoused by the German MP, maintained that
when given the opportunity, with God’s
blessing, by the Ghanaian electorate in
2016, he will seek to improve the living
standards of the citizenry through the
implementation of such policies.
“I have always been a firm believer that raw
material producing economies do not create
prosperity for the masses. The way to that
goal, the goal of ensuring access to
prosperity, is value addition activities in
a transformed and a diversified modern
economy,” he argued.
Nana Akufo-Addo was accompanied to these
meetings by Ms. Otiko Afisa Djaba, the
National Women’s Organiser of the NPP; Mr.
Charles Owiredu, Director of International
Relations of the NPP; Rev. Alex Acheampong,
Chairman of the NPP branch in Germany; Mr.
Sammy Adjei, 1st Vice Chairman of NPP
Germany; Mrs. Rebecca Sarpong, 2nd Vice
Chairperson of NPP Germany; Mr. Francis
Asenso-Boakye, Political Assistant to Nana
Akufo-Addo; and Mr. Eugene Arhin, Press
Secretary to Nana Akufo-Addo.
The NPP presidential candidate on Wednesday,
April 20, 2015, left for the Netherlands,
the second country of his 16-day tour of
Europe.
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