Akufo-Addo’s IEA performance not in-depth – Abu Sakara
The Convention People’s Party (CPP) has described the performance of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Flag bearer, Nana Akufo-Ad.do, at the Institute of Economic Affairs (lEA) forum as “good oral performance” but lacking in depth in many areas.
The Flagbearer of the CPP, Dr Abu Sakara, told the Daily Graphic that Akufo-Addo “brushed over many issues which required more depth.”
He said in dealing with the issue of drugs, for example, the NPP Flag bearer failed to confront it headcon and talked only about attitudinal change arid education.
He said he expected Akufo-Addo to state which mechanisms he would put in place to enforce the law and punish offenders.
On the issue of corruption, he said he expected the NPP Flag bearer, who is a lawyer, to take a firm stand against corruption and state emphatically that he would seek to punish people whose wilful negligence resulted in financial loss to the state.
With regard to education, Dr Sakara said he was happy to know that the NPP now agreed with the CPP that free education at some levels was necessary and that putting premium on human capital development was essential.
“They have now seen the light and we say Akwaaba to them, he said. He added that the CPP was, however, of the view that before implementing free education at the secondary school level, the problem of Junior High School (JHS) students failing to enter secondary schools because of poor grades needed to be addressed.
“That is why we have proposed the establishment of the Opportunities Industrialisation Centres (OICs) in all the districts in Ghana to absorb graduates from the JHS who fail to enter the Senior High Schools (SHS) to train them in vocational and technical skills,” he said.
“The CPP proposal is that at the OICs, the students, apart from learning technical and vocational skills, will still study arithmetic, reading and writing to enable them catch up with those who enter the SHS,” he added.
Dr Sakara also disagreed with the suggestion made by Akufo-Addo that an enabling environment was. the most important requirement for business to thrive and added that government investment in strategic industries was what was needed.
He said areas where Ghana had comparative advantage as a result of its natural resources needed government investment and added that government needed only to provide capital and not manage the industries.
“It is false that government has no business in business. If that is true why did Obama inject huge capital into the collapsing automobile industry in the Unites States,” he asked.
In the area of health, Dr Sakara said spending more money in that sector would not necessarily solve the problems. He added that he expected Nana Akufo-Addo to state how he would create more doctors and paramedics and ensure equitable distribution of medical personnel in the country.
He said one of the main problems facing the sector was the refusal of medical personnel to accept postings to deprived areas and wondered what ideas the NPP had to solve that problem.
He said the CPP would institute the payment of “hardship allowance” to health personnel who serve in the rural areas and other rewards such as post graduate courses.
Source: Daily Graphic