Employment for the Youth is paramount-Jake

Kwaminakrom (W/R), Aug 4, GNA - Mr. Jake Otanka Obetsebi- Lamptey, a New Patriotic Party (NPP) Presidential Aspirant, has said his greatest challenge would be how to create employment for the youth because the youth was the lifeblood of the nation.

He said this at Kwaminakrom near Tarkwa when he met Tarkwa-Nsuaem constituency executives of NPP as part of his tour of the Western Region.

He said in 2000 when NPP was given the mandate to run the administration of the country there was high inflation, educational system was not good, access to quality healthcare were all problems and NPP had to solve all these.

Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey said President John Agyekum Kufuor had tackled these problems and had achieved positive results with the introduction of National Health Insurance Scheme, Capitation Grant, School Feeding Programme and reduction of inflation.

He said he would restructure the economy to improve agriculture so that there would be food security, effective distribution and marketing of food.

He said tourism was one area he would promote to create between 150,000 to 200,000 job opportunities a year.

"The old economy has to change to cater for the growing population. Ghana's population is 22 million, in 20 years time it will be 44 million and this needs new approach to managing the economy by using agric, cocoa and mining among other things to create new pillars of growth." Responding to whether the government's shares in Agricultural Development Bank should be sold to Stanbic Bank of South Africa, Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey said he had not read much about ADB but the important thing was how ADB could be made effective and efficient to help farmers and not who owns it.