SoNA 2021: Adwoa Safo to resubmit Affirmative Action Bill to Parliament – Akufo-Addo

The Minister of Gender, Child and Social Protection, Adwoa Safo, will be resubmitting to Parliament, the Affirmative Action Bill, President Nana Akufo-Addo has announced.

“Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of my first term of office, in 2017,the government outlined its social development goals to include the promotion of gender equity and equality, survival and development of children, as well as the harmonisation of social protection interventions and programmes to contribute to the development of our nation."

“I am pleased to inform the House that, in the course of this session of Parliament, the new Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hon. Sarah Adwoa Safo, MP for Dome Kwabenya, will resubmit to the House the Affirmative Action Bill."

“Our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters are looking up to us on this. Indeed, it will make our society the richer, and I am appealing to the House, on both sides, to make one big effort to ensure its enactment”, the President said on Tuesday, 9 March 2021, when he presented his first State of the Nation Address to Parliament."

On other social interventions, the President said the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) Programme has “increased the number of pay points from seven thousand two hundred (7,200) to fourteen thousand, three hundred (14,300) in order to make it easy for beneficiaries to access their grants. In all, a total of three hundred and thirty-four thousand, four hundred and thirty-eight (334,438) households benefitted from the Programme”.

Also, he said: “The Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) currently feeds over three million, three hundred thousand (3.3 million) beneficiary pupils, in some nine thousand (9,000) kindergarten and primary schools, with one hot nutritious meal every day per child”, he noted.

Additionally, the President noted that “our commitment to the development of inner cities and zongo communities is unwavering. Projects such as the construction of classroom blocks, astroturf, establishment of ICT centres, installation of streetlights, entrepreneurial and vocational skills training, supporting needy students, and the rehabilitation of access roads and drains, have been undertaken”.

“Another key policy initiative has been the re-introduction of the Arabic Instructors Programme”, adding: “The Zongo Coders Programme and Starhub Programme are initiatives meant to redirect the energies of young men and women of Zongo communities into productive ICT ventures. So far, several hundred young men and women have been trained under these programmes”.

“Mr. Speaker, activities of the then Ministry of Special Development Initiatives (MSDI), like those of the Inner City and Zongo Ministry, have been brought under the ambit of the Presidency. The record of work undertaken in the Ministry was remarkable – five hundred and sixty-eight (568) units of ten-seater community water closets, forty-two (42) warehouses, four hundred and twenty-seven (427) dams, forty (40) rural markets, twenty (20) fully equipped community clinics, three hundred and seven (307) fully equipped ambulances”.