British International Development Policy Won't Change-Conservative Party MP

British policy towards international development would not change should the Conservative Party be elected to power, Mr Andrew Mitchell, a Member of Parliament (MP) of the party, gave the assurance in Accra on Tuesday. He said if elections were called and the Conservative Party emerged winners his country's policy of development co-operation would continue. "We will be singing from the same hymn sheet", he stated, when he paid a courtesy call on President John Agyekum Kufuor at the Castle, Osu. They would however be focusing more on the private sector and the international trading system to help lift many people from poverty. Mr Mitchell, who is the shadow Secretary for International Development, is at the head of a delegation of the British Opposition Party that had already visited Sierra Leone and was in Ghana to see at first hand development activities taking place in these countries. He expressed appreciation for the giant strides Ghana was making towards socio-economic progress, saying, "much has changed for the better." The MP said there were a lot of lessons other countries could learn from Ghana. President Kufuor said the Government set off by getting the macro-economy right, since without this, there was nothing that the country could achieve. It was on the account of this that priority was given to private sector development, good governance and social services with emphasis on education and health and the provision of safety nets to spread equality of opportunity. President Kufuor said with the discovery of oilfields in the country, the hope was that the pace of development would be accelerated. He said the Government was determined to ensure that lessons were learned from the experiences of other oil-producing countries so as to adequately prepare for the boom and avoid pitfalls.