General News of 2012-10-18

CPP to chase poverty to hell’s gate

CPP says if voted into office this year, it will use agriculture to chase poverty to hell’s gate. The party is envisaging an end to the extreme poverty confronting majority of Ghanaians and will look into redistribution of lands in its drive to make Ghana a completely agrarian economy.

The party’s strategy will include agric inputs, agric subsidies, land, and irrigation materials directly targeted at the unemployed graduates in hopes of getting them started as business owners.

In giving agric a major boost, the CPP Acting Youth Organizer who joined other youth leaders of the various parties on pm:EXPRESS Tuesday envisages an end to graduate unemployment.

The CPP is also looking to implementing Nkurmah’s seven year development plan though it will revise areas of the plan that have become irrelevant in today’s technology driven global space.

Kadri Abdul Rauf revealed the CPP is looking into launching the state of youth report, a report that will examine previous pro-poor policies that have not been successful in the past and chart a new way forward. This is with the aim of getting the best policy for the youth in terms of employment.

An obviously charged Kadri told host Stephen Anti, “Any policy not targeting the youth is a bad policy because by the figures our number is great. And if any nation will be a great nation, certainly the youth has an essential role to play. But in the case of Ghana, that is not what we are seeing”. Majority of people are at the mercy of the sun without proper jobs due to rising unemployment

He continued galvanizing for votes for his party, “Unemployment is a youth affair and not until the Convention Peoples Party is given the nod, the youth will continue to be unemployed”.

He thinks being the founders of Ghana; they [CPP] are the only ones who can put Ghana back on the developmental path. “Not until those in power bring the relevant portions of the seven year Nkrumah plan into full action, our desire for employment will amount to chasing after the wind”.

On the other hand, PNC’s youth leader Abu Ramadan chided politicians for failing the country in that they have not created the environment and strategy that will eliminate the unemployment issue.“The population keeps increasing and as a politician, I will not introduce a policy today and maintain the blue print that I used in starting the policy today in the next four years when I remain in power. Clearly I have to revise my strategy. Are we doing that as political heads? If not, we need to take a second look”.

He said a PNC government will put infrastructural development –health, education and roads - ahead because it targets all the other facets of the economy.

PNC plans to build within its first two years in office one SHS each in every district of the country. This will come to over two hundred if you add the newly created districts to the existing 175.

The PPP youth Coordinator in selling his party’s ideas to the people cautioned Ghanaians not to give their votes to the dogs. Quizzed further by host Stephen Anti on why he would refer to the NDC and NPP as dogs, Divine Nkrumah simply said “the truth hurts”. He explained the two parties have failed Ghanaians woefully.

In soliciting for votes, Divine Nkrumah said the PPP has given significant positions to the youth in the party – a demonstration that they have the youth at heart and will work to ameliorate the unemployment situation and put the economy on the path of growth.