Poor leadership is a major cause of rural poverty

Nkawie (Ash), Aug. 10, GNA - Madam Cecilia Tumtuo, an aspiring assembly member for Nkawie-Panin Electoral Area, has observed that poor and bad leadership has been a major cause of poverty, unemployment and under-development in most rural areas.

She said leadership without vision and good qualities usually led to inconsistency in planning development programmes to improve the living standard of the people.

Madam Tumtuo, who is the only female among the three candidates, who filed their nominations for the electoral area in the forthcoming district assembly elections, was speaking to the Ghana News Agency at Nkawie in the Atwima-Nwabiagya District on Wednesday. She expressed concern about the attitude of some men, who used their positions, authority and influences to deny and discouraged their female counterparts from and actively participating in decision-making process and said such attitude undermined accelerated social and economic growth.

Women, she said, who aspired to occupy leadership positions should be adequately encouraged and supported to enable them offer dedicated, transparent and selfless services to the communities. Madam Tumtuo said it was her aim to lead and mobilise the community members to undertake priority self-help programmes that would improve the living standard of the residents. Her priority programmes, she said, would involve healthy environmental sanitation, education and empowering of women to be economically self-depended.

"Education is the most potent tool for development and I would spearhead the promotion of quality education and basically encourage more girls to go to school", she said. Madam Tumtuo noted that a healthy, educated and disciplined society created wealth and that it was her ambition to encourage the youth to acquire vocational and technical skills to promote economic growth through self-employment.