Youth urged to get involved in policy implementation

Accra, Jan.16, GNA - The People's National Convention (PNC) on Wednesday urged Ghanaian youth to get involved in the current democratic dispensation and hold the country's leaders accountable to ensure that policies implemented meet their immediate and future aspirations.

"All youth of Ghana, let us rise beyond mediocrity and immediate pleasures .. to be far sighted for the sake of a better mother Ghana and a future devoid of massive corruption, high youth unemployment, high crime rate, brain drain, high poverty levels, unaffordable school fees, general high cost of living in the midst of the opulence of government functionaries", Mr. Emmanuel Wilson Junior, National Youth Organizer of the People's National Convention (PNC) told a press conference held by the Youth Wing of the Party in Accra.

He called on the youth to support the PNC to work towards an attitudinal change that would enable the youth to get involved in shaping bad economic policies into good ones. "No earthly reason can justify the extent of poverty that is widening and deepening for most of our people, especially the youth, while this nation is blessed enormously with able, hardworking, highly competent and extremely clever citizens, along with natural resources that are the envy of many countries in the world", he said. Mr. Wilson noted that the policy direction of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in this democratic dispensation has caused a rapid increase in the departure of able-bodied youth to other countries in search of greener pastures.

"Running away from the problem will not solve any issue", he said Mr. Wilson noted that a well-educated youthful population held the key to every country's prosperity.

He said the country's educational system was the best in Africa but it was being destroyed through implementation of bad policies adding, "Our schools, Colleges and Universities are starved of equipment and funds in spite of huge loans that were disbursed during the regime of the NDC and that of the GETFUND under the ruling NPP. "Lecture halls are overcrowded and student accommodation is in crisis, some 60 percent of pupils completing their junior high schooling cannot gain admission into the next level of Senior High Schools." Mr. Wilson called for a compulsory internship programme from basic to tertiary level that would enable students relates theory to practice. He said under a PNC administration, the party's youth commission would create employment through the provision of incentives for agricultural industries, ready market for farm produce and a structured special regional initiative based on each region's economic potential. According to Mr. Wilson the government's incompetence in the implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme has led to a high cost of healthcare delivery.

He said both the NPP and the NDC have proved that they could not build a bright future for the country and the electorate had another opportunity to save this country by voting the PNC into power in December.