NUGS honours Kwabena Duffuor for ‘tremendous contribution to youth devt'

The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) has honoured former Finance Minister and founder of the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) Dr Kwabena Duffuor for his immense contribution to the overall development of the country and the youth in particular.

The Union described the former Bank of Ghana Governor as a distinguished personality who has shaped the future of the Ghanaian youth.

NUGS presented Dr Duffuor with a citation on Wednesday at his IFS office in Accra.

NUGS Secretary Divine Kwadzodeh highlighting the essence of the award said “as a society, we interface a lot with public personalities, people who have had the opportunity to have served in government. We have instituted an award scheme to recognize the serious contribution that certain people have made towards education and public policy in general in shaping the future of the Ghanaian student and shaping the future of the youth of this country.”

“So we singled certain very high profile individuals who have served in various capacities of government and have contributed tremendously to the development of this country and you are one of such distinguished personalities and so we have the privilege of coming here to recognize the impact you have made on the development of this country and the development of the youth,” he stressed.

Excerpts of the citation read “prestige citation and award in honour of Dr Kwabena Duffuor. The National Union of Ghana Students on the occasion of its august alumni homecoming awards and handing-over ceremony has contemplated your stellar input in academia, industrial transformation and public service in general.

“The union has also given overwhelming consideration to your resolute contributions to the economic and financial fortunes of Ghana”.

Dr Duffuor thanked the union for the honour.

“The citation has really humbled me. As students, I understand where you are coming from. I know what you are striving to achieve, excellence,” he said.

He praised the group for gearing towards the path of growing a merit-based society where there is equal opportunity for all by appreciating the efforts of past achievers.

He said “the path to excellence as popularly enshrined in our constitution, equal opportunity is a cornerstone of our democratic enterprise. But to be able to achieve that as a nation we have to create and sustain this equal opportunity through education through, through training. As soon as we are able to do this, we are creating a merit-based system which alone can move us towards excellence, which you are pursuing.”

“That has been the vision of the founding fathers of our constitution. But to be able to achieve this, gentlemen, we have to make sure that we don’t forget the past, we must learn how to accept previous achievements of other people, that is why I’m happy that this has happened today,” he added.

He went on “we normally don’t do it. We usually try to erase the past achievements but to achieve excellence we have to recognize the achievements of the past. If you watch the installation of chiefs and what they say ‘this is what my great-great-uncle came to do, I’m going to continue’.”

Urging NUGS to continue towing this path, he reiterated “I urge you to move on. You are doing what is right. I am really encouraged, I can see that you are moving on a path of a merit-system society which alone can save this country. I am delighted.”

Also present at the ceremony were Harry Karikari (NUGS Sec for Union development), and

Moses Baafi Acheampong (former NUGS Chief Justice(2019) and former head of transitional team-NUGS 2019).

Others were Walker Obeng Darko (former press and info-NUGS 2019), and Bright Baah Egyir (Transitional Team Member) and Peter Darkwa (Secretary for Finance for NUGS).