FLASHBACK: Unemployed graduates more vulnerable than Kayayei, feed them too – Odike tells Akufo-Addo

Founder of the United Progressive Party (UPP), Akwasi Addai Odike on April 9, 2020, faulted government for considering a few groups in the country as vulnerable despite the impact of COVID-19 on the country.

He explained that not all head porters (kayayei), street hawkers, and shoeshine boys who prior to the lockdown earned a living through non-formal activities can be classified as vulnerable because some of them used to make “unbelievable savings” daily.

The UPP party founder indicated that they were also to be considered vulnerable.

His comments came on the back of the government serving some 400,000 individuals in the Greater Accra and the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan areas with daily hot meals and dry food.

Read the full story originally published on April 9, 2020, on GhanaWeb:

Founder of the United Progressive Party (UPP), Akwasi Addai Odike has faulted government over its classification of some individuals as “vulnerable” in the wake of the COVID-19 without recourse to a thorough judgement to the individual plight of citizens in such a time.

He says not all head porters (kayayei), street hawkers and shoeshine boys who prior to the lockdown earned a living through non-formal activities can be classified as vulnerable because some of them used to make “unbelievable savings” on a daily basis.

According to him, unemployed graduates who had no means of earning a living prior to the lockdown could be the most vulnerable in the present circumstances and so must also be brought into the bracket by government.

He was commenting on the decision by government to serve some 400,000 individuals in the Greater Accra and the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan areas with daily hot meals and dry food packages throughout the period of the partial lockdown in those areas, when he made these remarks in an interview in Kumasi-based Angel FM monitored by MyNewsGh.com on Tuesday.