Sammy Awuku
The National Youth Organiser of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Sammi Awuku, on Thursday organized an evidence-based public forum for disappointed youth from various sectors of the economy to tell the frustrations they were going through under President Mahama’s government.
Ranging from disappointed trainee teachers, nurses, hair dressers, head potters [kayayei], taxi drivers, scrap dealers, spare parts dealers and a host of others, they took turns to narrate the hardships they had been going through.
They therefore joined calls for a change in government whiles stressing the need for their fellow Ghanaian youth to rise up for change by voting against President Mahama and the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) on December 7, 2016 when the country goes to the polls to elect a leader for the next four years.
The event, which took place at the Kokomba market in Accra, was modeled after what President Mahama himself called ‘evidence-based’ presentation when he delivered the State of the Nation Address early this year. In the cause of the delivery, he lined up some Ghanaians from various sectors to tell how his governance was impacting positively on their lives.
Untold Hardships
Speaker after speaker at yesterday’s youth forum related the untold hardships they were going through as a result of what they described the ‘bad leadership, corruption and governance’ that was being witnessed in the country under the leadership of President Mahama, who claims to be ‘changing lives and transforming Ghana.’
The forum was part of activities to mark the International Youth Day, which fell on August 12, 2016 under the theme, ‘The Road to 2030: Eradicating Poverty and Achieving Sustainable Consumption and Production.”
This year’s event is about achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with a focus on the leading role of young people in ensuring poverty eradication and achieving sustainable development through sustainable consumption and production.
After listening to the various frustrations expressed by the teeming youth, the NPP youth leader could not but conclude, “Judging from the mood of the country now, we are certain that Ghana’s youth are no longer interested in the propaganda, rhetoric and lies.”
Awuku’s Assurance
Mr Sammi Awuku underscored, “We don’t want to hear broken promises anymore. We know what is really happening. Luckily, we can tell the difference between truth and lies and a ‘goat and a cow.’ We want to hear from people really talking about their problems, the problems that have been created by a government that doesn’t understand their needs and doesn’t care about what happens to them.”
He assured the teeming Ghanaian youth that when voted into power, “The NPP’s first priority is to create jobs, real decent paying jobs that will give young people the better living conditions they deserve. We will do that through our ‘One District, One Factory’ policy – creating local industrial parks in every district in the country and working with the private sector to open factories so that instead of exporting raw materials for low prices, and importing finished goods for high prices. We will employ the youth of our nation in producing our own finished goods that we can both sell here in Ghana and export.”
In the case of the graduates who had spent years studying to gain qualifications, he noted, “We will give tax relief to those employers who hire them – so that there will be the jobs available for them when they leave school – because we cannot afford as a country for our most qualified people to leave Ghana and take their energy and talent to other countries in order to find work.”
Apart from that, he also revealed, “We will also scrap the new taxes on private universities that John Mahama has introduced – this is a tax on knowledge. Not only does it deny the opportunity of a university education to many young people by raising the level of tuition fees, it penalizes those families who are already struggling to make ends meet, and who have sacrificed so much to ensure that their children receive the best education that they can.”
Restoration Of Allowances
As a result of corruption and mismanagement, he indicated, “The NDC has run out of the money to fund so many of the services that the NPP government of John Kufuor left behind,” citing the nurses and teacher training allowances which the government has cancelled. “We will restore it to ensure that those young people training to join these vital public services no longer have to worry how they are going to survive from day to day as they study and train,” Sammi Awuku assured.
“Another NPP policy scrapped by the NDC – which we will restore – is free Metro transport for school children. Perhaps for the big men from the NDC, transport fares are peanuts for them to think about – but not for young parents struggling to make ends meet because for them every cedi counts.”
To him therefore, “Ghana deserves better than four more years of failure, corruption and incompetence. The youth of Ghana deserve better than another term of John Mahama and the NDC,” he said with a charge in tow, “That’s why on December 7th you shouldn’t just hope for a better Ghana; you should vote for one – vote for change; vote for Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP.”
Present were former National Youth Organiser of the party and NPP parliamentary candidate for Lawra, Anthony Abayifa Karbo; the two Deputy Youth Organisers, Dominic Eduah and Salam Mustafah; Nasara Coordinator, Kamal Deen; the party’s parliamentary candidate for Odododiodioo and Asante Akim North, Nii Lantey Bannerman and Andy Appiah Kubi respectively and a host of others.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu