Kwaku Kwarteng, former Deputy Finance Minister and Member of Parliament for Obuasi West in the Ashanti region, has called for an overhaul of what he describes as “the corrupt public procurement regime” as a crucial step for the governing party to break the eight-year political cycle.
In a statement titled “To break the eight, we must first break the norm,” the Obuasi West MP shared his advice with his party. He highlighted that since independence, political norms have centred around parties boasting of past achievements and making grand promises for the future during elections.
Kwarteng, who also served as the immediate past chairman of Parliament’s Finance Committee, criticised the tendency of political parties to depict their opponents in a negative light. He lamented that politicians have mastered the art of this negative campaigning, forgetting that politics should be about the future of the children and the motherland.
“Election campaigns have been reduced to bitter struggles between competitors seeking power for the wrong reasons,” Kwarteng stated.
He argued that this “primitive political culture” has led to the widespread belief that all politicians are the same, contributing to the persistent eight-year political cycle. To break this cycle, Kwarteng emphasised the need to break this norm by acknowledging the past and present failures of the political class to provide the quality leadership required to address the country’s current issues.
Kwarteng stressed the importance of deep and far-reaching reforms to tackle decades of poor politics and economic mismanagement. He believes that the government must adopt these reforms to create a significant shift in the political landscape and ultimately break the eight-year cycle.