*STATEMENT BY NANA AKOSUA FRIMPOMAA SARPONG , CPP VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, AT A PRESS BRIEFING - THE PARTY HEADQUATERS. 16TH OCTOBER, 2012*

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*Ghana Must Work Again.*

“*The CPP will not compromise in the pursuit of social Justice. We believe in creating a society that gives equal opportunity to all and the future of our citizens should not be determined by accident or circumstances of his/her birth but by the opportunities created by responsible government interventions*.”

This is where I think the problem lies. To create the appropriate interventions, we must pursue social interventions.

*Injustice.*

• The unfairness of toiling in the nation.

• The bias in the distribution of the nation’s wealth.

• The present gross injustice in the distribution of national wealth should be of great concern to every decent and God-fearing Ghanaian.

• The complete feeling of hopelessness characterized with a sense of frustration.

• The conflict of knowing the right to do versus what must be done.

*Background*

Let us understand that there is a reason to this current epidemic situation and appalling conditions of the youth. It is result of failed policies and systems extended over a period of time. Systems that do not put in place real social interventions such as those spelt out in the CPP manifesto. The same circumstances that gave rise to the CPP’s social interventions also gave birth to free education over fifty years ago. An intervention that today looks impossible to people who lack the vision. *The vision and ideals of CPP, then led by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah and now by Dr. Abu Sakara, are still relevant today as they were fifty years ago. *

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*The Youth of Ghana struggle too much!!!*

I see this injustice in the area of education. The current situation gives rise to gross unfair distribution of the nation’s wealth.

Although the farmer’s child or the market woman’s child have all contributed to the gross GDP of the nation, by producing the cocoa, and feeding the workers of the nation, they cannot pay for the tuition of their children in school. This is because their incomes are too low by selling their farm produce to the middle man or woman. The profit gained by the petty trader selling the produce on the market is not enough to pay for the rates set by government or free market prices.

The irony is that the government still subsidizes the tuition for the few, in minority, who are able to pay high tuition in private schools, yet excludes the child who by virtue of birth, is poor and invariably not able to learn as much to get high grades to advance.

The boy or girl, who is not able to pass the exams after BECE, is left to his or her fate, regardless of the fact that her parents have contributed highly to the gross GDP. His or her only further advancement or access is through apprenticeship that he or she must pay, while subjected to a life of hardship, frustration, hopelessness and all kinds of abuse. For three years when his or her other colleagues are in school, they undergo a life of treachery, learning from a senior apprentice. That is if he is lucky to afford this alternative, otherwise he gets onto the street, running up and down the scorching sun, at the mercy of uncontrollable elements, such as the peril of being hit by a car. Most of them end up living on the streets under highly deplorable condition. The girls get taken advantage of and becoming mothers, plunging into a cycle of poverty.

The social intervention of the CPP per our ideals in our manifesto is to extend the free basic education to the SHS level now.

*The Farmers of Ghana struggle all their Life*

I see injustice in the area of Agriculture. The average farmer is under-resourced, underpaid for his or her hard work. Due to lack of social infrastructure and social interventions, he or she is stuck in the village with no opportunity of generating any income except in harvest time of cash crops, when in season, and middle men/women come to buy from them.

Farmers are sheltered into smaller communities far away from market areas, that is one of the main reasons why they live below poverty lines.

Every person in the village have the same basic needs for food and therefore do not need their neighbors ,hence there is no sustainable economic activity to improve their lifestyles.

A CPP Establishment of a one-stop independent Agricultural Centre for the youth within walking distance in the communities, will immediately address this problem of both the needed logistical inputs for farming and a place for advisory, modern farming information and also to sell farm produce for onward transportation to a food distribution center.

Encourage and support the establishment of agro industries to add value to primary produces such as cocoa, cashew, shea nuts and fruits. Such social and human based intervention are CPP ideals that will definitely add more value to the farmers produce and improve the benefits to farmers.

Access to funding is the number one reason why the farmer sells below market price. Our intervention will allow the farmer to keep the harvested maize, pepper, etc., until the time for high yield.

Villages have not improved for years because they have been left to fend for us in the towns and cities and then fend for themselves.

CPP’s push towards mechanized farming is the only Godly and humane thing to do. No country worth its sort should allow so many young people, its future leaders, to spend a chunk part of their youth and adult life on the farm just providing food for themselves and others in the urban centers. We can do better than that.

Last but not the least; one major concern of mine is the oldmanor woman who after feeding the nation for thirty years or more, has no retirement benefit he or she can use. If at this point they have no child who has been able to escape the claws of poverty and is still subsistence farming, they will be lucky to live and die in poverty. For the woman she might be plunged into a different kind of hell, hell fire in a witch camp, either for old aging complications, or blamed for the perpetual cycle of poverty of no birth or the poverty her children find themselves in. A situation where a human centered CPP intervention can make all the difference. The establishment of farmers and fishermen Income security Scheme will definitely be God sent.

The well-being of the farmer and for issues that concern your life, alot has been said and sometimes it gets confusing. Let me make it simple: social interventions that are human centered.

*Sanitation and Environment*

Though, according to a gallop poll, Ghana is the most religious nation, it is also said that cleanliness is next to Godliness, yet we are consumed with so much filth, it is embarrassing on some streets. Plastic wastes have gotten out of hand. It is as though we cannot do anything about it.

Even though the government has employed one of the most expensive sanitation method in the history of Ghana, we still have to deal with the menace. It is no doubt we as a people have no clue on what and how to solve this problem. A CGC program that puts value on trash is my demonstrated intervention is in line with CPP desire to explore innovative ways in which we can reduce our carbon foot prints.

*Gender*

Support affirmative action as proposed in the CPP manifesto.

*Other highlights*

Our affordable housing seeks to build homes by Ghanaians for Ghanaians. Before the white man came to Ghana we lived in homes and we will built our own homes. CPP built homes by Ghanaians for Ghanaians well over 55 years ago.

There must have been a reason why organized institutions sponsored the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP. They actually banned the name or the use of any material associated with CPP. That is the reason whyour progress halted. The ideals of CPP are still the relevant issues today. FREE SHS, STX housing needs of the nation, etc. How come we have had no natural disaster yet we wake up one day after 46 years and realized we need serious accommodation. We were ready to mortgage 50% of our expected oil revenue over a 20yr period into housing.

Most intriguing again is the fact that even after the overthrow of CPP, the leader of the CPP is honored as the African man of the Millennium. What kind of irony is this? Could it be that people who also had the ability to see into the future associated themselves with others who had no clue, but blinded by creed and ignorance, did this just to halt the process of the Ghanaian and more importantly the African. You must be the judge. I believe in the Ghanaian, I believe in your ability to choose what is good for us, as we did 55years ago. We may have made mistakes but nonetheless, we continue to learn from them and use the experience to make wise choice.

Finally, if after fifty years, the ideals of CPP are what we know must be done today, then let us take a good look, maybe, CPP should not have been overthrown, and therefore must be given the chance again, a vote for CPP is a vote for YOU to make Ghana work again.