Ghana can only develop when jobs are created- Dr Akoto

Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Member of Parliament for Kwadaso in the Ashanti Region, on Thursday noted that Ghana’s economy could only develop when jobs are created to boost the human resource base of the country.

He said the Government needed to transform the fortunes of Ghanaians through the oil find by financing some specific targeted activities to achieve that feat.

Dr Akoto was speaking at a public lecture organised by the Tertiary Education Students Confederacy (TESCON) of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) of the University of Ghana City Campus, to celebrate TESCON week.

The theme for the celebration was, “Celebrating the NPP: A testimony of hope, prosperity and nationalism.”

He said Manufacturing and Agriculture sectors needed to be transformed in order to make meaningful contributions to the country’s development.

Dr Akoto said agro processing needed to be promoted and marketed, and extend to farmers the needed support to develop their skills to cultivate and rear crops and animals to meet international standards.

“At the end of the NPP government led by former President J. A. Kuffour, a bag of maize was sold at forty Ghana cedis and now maize is been sold at 150 Ghana cedis, even in some parts of Kumasi, it is sold at two hundred cedis.”

Nana Akomea, Communications director of the NPP, said the Party would empower Ghanaians to set-up factories to produce products that were imported into the country.

He said last year, three billion United States dollars was used to import chocolate into the country, adding, “For the last three years, the cedi has fallen more than 70 per cent.”

Nana Akomea noted that, head porters, popularly known as kayaye in the Accra Metropolis were paying one cedi daily to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, “whiles millions of cedis was being paid to sympathizers of the NDC as judgment debts.”

The outgoing Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West Wagon, Mrs Frema Opare said in the NPP, there was hope, prosperity and nationalism and that the theme for the celebration was in the right direction.

She said there would be no development in a country where citizens are not informed, saying, the NPP has always believed in education and will prioritise information and the promotion of the country’s human resource.

Mrs Opare said the Party supported, built and upgraded Senior Secondary schools in the former regime to promote education and to boost the human resource years to come as education was the foundation of the nation’s development.

Other speakers were Mr Dan Kwaku Botwe, Member of Parliament for Okere and Mr Kyeremanteng Agyarku, Parliamentary candidate for Ayawaso West Wagon.**