NPP’s property-owning democracy designed to empower ordinary Ghanaians — Minority Leader

Minority Leader and Member of Parliament for Effutu, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has rejected claims that the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) ideology of property-owning democracy favours only the elite.

He said the political tradition, rooted in the Danquah-Busia-Dombo philosophy, was designed to empower ordinary Ghanaians to become active participants and owners in the economy.

Delivering a lecture on the impact of right-centre ideology on Ghana’s economy in Accra on Monday, March 2, the Effutu MP argued that the concept has often been misunderstood.

The lawmaker stressed that the philosophy seeks to break barriers that exclude the poor from economic opportunity.

“The vision of the property-owning democracy was never about protecting those who already had property. It was about making property accessible to those who did not. It was about transforming Ghanaians from passive spectators in the economy into active participants and owners,” he stated.

He cited flagship policies under former Presidents John Agyekum Kufuor and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as practical expressions of the ideology.

These included the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the Capitation Grant, the School Feeding Programme, Free Senior High School, One District One Factory, Planting for Food and Jobs, Agenda 111 and the Ghana Card.

According to him, such interventions were not acts of charity but deliberate efforts to remove structural barriers to opportunity.

Osahen Afenyo-Markin argued that social protection policies align with centre-right thinking in a developing economy like Ghana’s.

“We are not a party for the few who have arrived. We are a movement for the many who are on their way,” he said.

Osahen Afenyo-Markin emphasised that sustainable development must be driven by productive citizens operating within a rules-based market system, with the state acting as an enabler rather than a controller.