NDC youth manifesto game changer — Opare Addo
The National Youth Organiser of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), George Opare Addo, has urged the youth to embrace the party’s youth manifesto as it holds in trust the needed policies to address their challenges.
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He said the NDC youth manifesto was the “game-changer” that would ensure that the youth who form majority in the country have their needs addressed when the NDC is elected.
“Over the years, our population keeps growing. The population we have currently has more young people than elderly people. If your political party is seeking to make any major interventions in your body politics, the focus will have to be mainly on young people.
That’s why we have youth-centred policies separated from the main manifesto as the game-changer,” he said.
Free academic tuition
Mr Addo said this in an interview with the Daily Graphic last Wednesday after the launch of the party’s youth manifesto.
Explaining the free academic tuition captured in the youth manifesto, Mr Opare Addo said the policy was aimed at helping fresh undergraduate students of public universities who have enjoyed free primary and secondary school education to gain admission to desired tertiary institutions.
On practicability of this policy, Mr Addo explained that the NDC understood the mathematics behind that policy and would be more than capable of implementing the policy, when it cuts government machinery cost.
“A little above 127,000 students gained admission to the various tertiary institutions with maximum academic tuition being GH¢2,200. If you do the mathematics, it comes out to a little above GH¢ 270 million; this is less than 10 per cent the amount government spends on free SHS,” he stated.
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He alluded that the current administration had about GH¢2 billion budgetary allocation for government machinery which was thrice the NDC’s GH¢ 660 million budget in 2016 for same function; adding that cutting this cost would permit the NDC to successful implement this policy among other revenue sources.
“Today, the total budget allocation at the Office of Government Machinery is GH¢2 billion. Former President Mahama is saying that it is better to cut down the size of government machinery and return it to GH¢700 million or GH¢660 million, and invest the remaining GH¢1.3 billion or GH¢1.4 billion into education and support of other youth innovations such as the training of over one million coders,” he added.
Mr Addo added that this policy would be complemented by the student loan from second year onward for beneficiaries of this programme. Meanwhile, the policy is expected to cover the full tuition for persons living with disabilities while in school.