NPP'S DEVELOPMENT AGENDA UNPARALLED (PAGE 14)

The NPP government under the leadership of President J.A. Kufuor has created 1.7million jobs, built 205 clinics and hospitals as well as expanded education opportunities and infrastructure unparalleled in the history of the country.
The Ministers of Education, Science and Sports, Manpower and Employment as well as the Deputy Minister of Health, who gave separate accounts of the record of their ministries at the 16th annual conference of the NPP in Sekondi on Saturday, said the performance of the NPP in the past seven and half years in office was impressive and should be the basis for voters to retain the government in power.
The Minister of Manpower and Employment, Nana Akomea, said in the first six years of its tenure, the government created 1.7million new jobs and increased wages by about 622 per cent.
Nana Akomea used extensively the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) of 1999 and 2005, Ghana Job Tracking Report, the World Bank Report Memorandum of 2008, Ghana Population Census and the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre Report to support his assertion.
He said the GLSS of 1999 indicated that job opportunities within that period amounted to 6,798,000 but a similar survey conducted in 2005 showed that job openings increased to 9,124,000.
Job opportunities generated from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from 2001 to 2008 amounted to 86,200 compared to 64,000 created from the FDI from 1994 to 2000, he said.
In the case of wages, he said the national daily minimum wage had been increased from ¢3117 in 2000 to ¢22,500 (GH¢2.25 new Ghana cedis) representing an increase of 622 per cent.
Nana Akomea said although the economy had registered tremendous growth and improvement in the last eight years in history, there was still more work to be done.
In October 2006, the government launched the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) to provide employment opportunities to the youth.
So far, the Minister said, a total of 108,000 young people had been employed under the NYEP and the government was taking measures to institutionalise the NYEP.
He said the problem of timely payment of ¢6.4billion wages of the workers under the NYEP had been solved following arrangement between the government and a commercial bank.
For the first time, Nana Akomea said, a National Youth Employment had been fashioned out and currently the draft policy document was being considered by the Cabinet.
“The last eight years had been impressive. We have to continue this if we are to move forward,” he stated.
Presenting what the government had achieved in the education sector, Professor Dominic Fobih, the Minister of Education, Science and Sports, said the government had performed creditably in the education sector.
Before 2001 when the NPP government came into office, he said, the education sector was characterised by the poor school infrastructure and lack of implementation of the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE).
The effect of those conditions, he said, was that many children, who should have been in school, could not get access to education.
To reverse the appalling situation in the sector, Professor Fobih, said the government pursued a strategy to rehabilitate and construct new classroom blocks to provide decent accommodation for effective teaching and learning.
Besides, the government sought to provide accommodation for teachers, upgraded teacher training colleges to diploma awarding institutions and provided logistics such as transport to enhance academic work and management of schools.
The result of all those measures and many others, he said, was that enrolment at all levels had increased tremendously.
Mr Abraham Dwumah Odoom, Deputy Minister of Health, said the trust of the health policy had been to promote preventive medicine and healthy life styles instead of curative medicine.
While promoting preventive medicine, he said the government had built 205 clinics and hospitals over the period of its tenure to enhance health care.
As a result of effective health interventions, some diseases were reducing and the brain drain which was a prominent feature of the health sector had virtually abated.
He said indications were that those health personnel who travelled to seek greener pastures abroad were now returning home because of the attractive salary packages introduced by the government.
In addition to the provision of health facilities, Mr Odoom, said the government’s introduction of the National Health Insurance Scheme was making waves in the health sector, and that the scheme had been hailed as one of the best in the world.
For his part, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah Bonsu, who represented the Majority leader, said the NPP had increased its presence in Parliament from 1992 when it had no representation in the House to 128 in 2005.