National Youth Organizer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), George Opare-Addo has challenged his counterpart, Henry Nana Boakye (Nana B) to a public debate, saying he is ready to debate him on any platform, anyway, anytime.
According to him, he will debate Nana B on issues that has a bearing on the youth and not the propaganda he has been speaking on.
“There are so many things that we can speak to, and I’m ready to openly debate Nana B on any platform, anyday anytime so that we speak to issues one by one,” he said on Joy FM SMS.
Continuing, he said “we must take them [debate] from sector by sector so that when we take education, we debate education issues properly and thoroughly; when we take health, we debate thoroughly too because every government policy has an effect on young people.”
“For instance, the banking sector clean up, do you know the number of people who lost their jobs. About 60 to 70% of these people who worked in these banks were young people. You can’t introduce NABCO and say you have created jobs…is that a sustainable job, does it give job security”, he questioned.
Nana B yesterday said the NPP government have successfully introduced and implemented 60 oil percent youth policies and employed over the 200,000 youth.
Mr Opare-Addo said “I said somewhere yesterday that I wasn’t going to respond to what Nana B said because currently in Ghana there is hopelessness everywhere for young people.”
“The question is, why are young people disenfranchised, why are young people giving up on this country. Nana B is known for old fashioned politics…it is not new and it’s typical of NPP because the President engages in that kind of politics.”
“There are real issues confronting young people of this country. So when you say you’ve given jobs to young people, when you say that you’ve implemented 60 policies and you challenge a debate, our records speak loudly and clearly,” he pointed out.
He emphasized "not once, not twice we’ve heard the number two, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia talks about NDC did nothing. Anytime the NPP talks, they talk about they’ve done this, they’ve done that.”
“What they forget is that, most of the so called policies they introduced or brought about, even the legal framework when President Kufuor started youth employment, there was no legal framework. It was the NDC that came to pass Act 887, that today the YEA has a legal framework that they operate on,” he added.