The Economic Fighters have challenged government to roll out policies that will ensure that Ghanaians benefit to ease their financial burden.

As the world marks International Poverty Day, the pressure group laments “it is not well with Ghana and indeed Africa”.

The group, in a statement issued on Tuesday, October 17 signed by Fighter-General, Hardi Yakubu, cited a report by the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), which suggested that 1/4 of the Ghanaian population are poor, which means they cannot afford a meal of GHS3.60 a day.

The group said the research further pointed out that another 2.2 million Ghanaians are extremely poor and cannot afford a decent meal of GHS 2.20.

“The Ghanaian population is a youthful population and majority of the youth are unemployed. More than 50% of its population falls within the age bracket of 24 and below. This increases more substantially if we add those within the 25-35 age bracket.

“Young people cannot find jobs to do even after spending time and money to educate themselves. Meanwhile, cost of living continues to increase with transport fares, cost of rent and food pushing young people into destitution.

“This portends a potentially explosive situation if government does not take practical steps to reverse the tide. Clearly, we have failed to create jobs because we don’t own our economy,” the statement added.

According to them, “the time has come for Africa to boldly take full control and ownership of its resources in conformity with the rest of the world” because “we need economic freedom now”.