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Ghana, In Search of Illusive Positive Change: A Performance Review of the First Kufuor Administration is a referendum on governance in Ghana by the administration of President John Agyekum Kufuor from January 2001 to December 2004. President Kufuor was leader of the then ruling party, New Patriotic Party (NPP). This book reconciles the promises of policy initiatives by the NPP in its pre-election 2000 Manifesto: Agenda for Positive change, with outcomes of actual performance by the Kufuor administration and their effects on the political-economy and people of Ghana. It discusses questions concerning the extent to which outcomes of policies executed by the Administration affected change on the political-economy of Ghana. The author uses the material content of NPP’s 2000 Manifesto as the benchmark and guideline for assessing and evaluating the policy actions of the Administration and their outcomes. The power of the promises and proposed policies in NPP’s 2000 Manifesto was the force that inspired and motivated the writing of Ghana, In Search of Illusive Positive Change. It is the author’s position that had the Kufuor administration translated the promises of NPP 2000 Manifesto into reality Ghana would have been on the road towards positive change in its political-economy. As it turned out, the Kufuor administration conducted inefficient governance by failing to execute its own stated policies to profitable conclusions, especially in the economic realm. Another reason for writing Ghana, In Search of Illusive Positive Change was about the circumstances surrounding the election into power of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 2000 and its effect on the historical process of politics in Ghana. Very significantly, the 2000 elections marked the first time in the 43-year history of Ghana as an independent country that political power transferred from one civilian government to another, through the ballot box. Before the 2000 elections Ghana had been infamous for regular intervention in its political life by the military. It was significant also that the NPP had been in political opposition, in and out of parliament, for almost three decades. That Ghanaians voted in 2000 for NPP, to replace the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), was an indication of new confidence the electorate had in the party and hence, greater expectation from its performance when in government. For the author, yet another reason for writing this book derived from the nature of economic and political thinking and persuasion that informed the organizational direction and trajectory of NPP, relative to the governance of Ghana. NPP 2000 Manifesto made it clear that the party’s leaders were serious pro-free-enterprise idealists who promised to govern in an atmosphere of liberal democracy in Ghana. Thus, part of the attraction for writing Ghana, In Search of Illusive Positive Change arose from the curiosity to understand the process by which the Kufuor administration navigated the affairs of Ghana, a poor post-colonial African society, towards positive change with a free-enterprise ideology in an atmosphere of liberal democracy. The author believes that having a grasp of how NPP governed Ghana would be of benefit to the party and its supporters to detect the fault lines in the performance of their leaders in the future. Understanding the outcomes of policy actions executed by the Kufuor administration would offer the NPP the chance to know which of their policies enhanced the chances towards positive change in the political-economy of Ghana and to discard those that did not work. Ghana, as a society, can also benefit from understanding the mode of governance by the NPP so that the electorate would be in a position to discern the contradictions associated with reconciling electi
