Vote for Nana Akufo-Addo to continue with the development - Bawumia

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has asked Ghanaians to retain the government in power to continue with the many developments and social intervention programmes.

He said the December 7 election would be a choice between the era of untold hardships under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) or the few years of social interventions programmes by the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

He said under the NDC, Ghanaians encountered five years of power outages, youth unemployment, non-functioning ambulance service, arbitrary increase in utility and the absence of Teaching and Learning Materials (TLMs).

Dr Bawumia, who said this when he addressed a Durbar at Atobiase in the Wassa-East District to begin his two-day working visit to the Western Region, appealed to Ghanaians to give President Akufo-Addo the chance to change the fortunes of the country.

According to him, the NPP Government pursued a vigorous agenda to bring relief to the people of Ghana such as the free SHS policy, 1D1F, restoration of teacher trainee and nurses trainee allowances, planting for food and jobs, cocoa interventions and producer price increases, among others.

Dr Bawumia said the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic had gained global recognition and commendation with the free provision of water and electricity, COVID-19 alleviation fund to business owners, tax rebates and free meals to the populace during the lockdowns and students.

Nana Opiah Mensah, Acting Chief of Wassa Atobiase, in his address, commended the government for the unprecedented infrastructural development in the area.

He advocated the construction of a senior high school for the town since it was far from the district capital, Daboase.

He called for the provision of a mobile telecommunication network to solve the area and making it difficult to make calls and use internet services.

Nana Mensah also reminded him for the construction of a bridge over the Pra River to connect the residents to the neighbouring towns which makes it difficult for the children to cross during school days, as promised by President Akufo-Addo some time ago.

Mr Joseph Boahen, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of COCOBOD, noted that the free SHS policy had benefitted the majority of Ghanaians without which many children would have dropped out of school and called on the people to vote for the continuation of the policy.

Touching on cocoa production, he announced that the cocoa pruning and hand pollination initiative introduced by the government has tremendously changed cocoa production in the country, bringing big relief to farmers.

He urged the people not to take the National Democratic Congress' ( NDC) propaganda of free fertilizer seriously and said it was not achieved when they were in government.

The CEO of Cocobod touched on the compensation package given to cocoa farmers whose farms were affected by the swollen shoot disease and said that was a huge investment of the NPP Government towards cocoa production.

He hinted that fifty-thousand youths would be engaged to embark on the cocoa tree cutting exercise to rid the farms of the dreaded swollen shoot disease for a replant.

Mr Boahen added that the cocoa pension scheme was vigorously pursued to give a befitting retirement package to cocoa farmers in the country.

Mr Wilson Arthur, Wassa-East District Chief Executive touted achievements in the education and skills training sector and said scholarships were given to students to further their education to higher levels and livelihood empowerment programmes.

He mentioned that the District had benefitted from two of the One-District, One-Factory (1D1F) initiative programmes to create employment to the teeming youth.

He said the administration had seen a lot of infrastructural developments in the three years.

Among the projects are the provision of potable water, construction of access roads, provision of the skills development centre and improvement in mobile telecommunications network among others.