The Cape Coast Metropolitan Directorate of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has organised a debate for the five parliamentary candidates in the Cape Coast South Constituency.
They are the incumbent MP, Mr. George Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, National Democratic Congress (NDC), who is seeking re-election; Mr. Michael Arthur Dadzie, New Patriotic Party (NPP); Mr. Bright Edem Droefenu of the Progressive People's Party (PPP); Mr Ato Aidoo Nanor of the Convention People’s Party (CPP); and Mr Albert Kobbinah, an Independent Candidate.
The debate was held at the Cape Coast Chapel Square where a large number of people in the Constituency had the opportunity to listen to all the five aspiring candidates.The debate was to create a platform for the aspiring parliamentary candidates to make their programmes known to the electorate and for the electorate to solicit views and commitments from them.
Dr Kenneth Aikins, the Chairman of the Central Regional Peace Council and the Reverend Enoch Odami, Cape Coast District Pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, moderated the close to three hour debate.
Organised in collaboration with the Ghana News Agency, and sponsored by the European Union (EU), the debate centred on issues concerning Education, Health, Employment, and Agriculture, which are key areas of concern to voters in the Constituency.
The Central Regional Director of the NCCE, Mr Nicolas Ofori Boateng, said it was important that the constituents would vote having in mind these key sectors and choose a political party and candidates that showed commitment and had effective plans to address them. The NCCE, he said, was mandated by law to institute measures to raise awareness for the public to know their civic responsibilities, rights and obligations, and that the parliamentary debate was one of such measures.
Mr Ricketts-Hagan, said he would continue to lobby for the construction of more factories in the Constituency to create employment for the teeming unemployed youth.On education, he outlined a number of measures he had undertaken, including the provision of vehicles to transport school children and the supply of educational materials to help improve the standards of education in the constituency.
When asked about measures to address the challenges facing the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the NPP candidate, Mr Arthur Dadzie proposed the establishment of a special fund where all NHIS monies could be accessed. This, he explained, was because putting such monies into the consolidated fund as was done now delayed payments to health facilities and created problems for the smooth running of the Scheme.
He said the NPP would encourage private individuals to set up more businesses to employ the many unemployed youth because the current freeze on public sector employment had resulted in a large army of unemployed youth..
He also enumerated some of the plans the NPP had for fishermen, and artisans in the Constituency and urged them to vote for him and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo in the 2016 Election.
Mr. Bright Edem Droefenu said it was only the PPP, which had the ability to create jobs for Ghanaians, citing the numerous businesses of its flag-bearer, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom.He said there was the need to intensify education on sanitation and introduce continuous sanitation day exercises to bring back community cleanliness.The Independent candidate, Mr Albert Kobbinah said parents and guardians needed to be educated and made to understand the importance of educating their children.
He said it was only through that that parents would commit to the educational needs of their children, adding that the Government's efforts at providing educational materials and improving infrastructure would be meaningless if children were not sent to school. Mr. Aidoo Nanor said the issue of unemployment in the country was as a result of misplaced political focus and promised to provide a holistic leadership that would address the concerns of all the unemployed in the Constituency.
He said the CPP would ensure that artisans added value to themselves by creating an avenue for them to attain recognized certificates from the polytechnics and the universities to increase their chances of getting jobs. In their concluding remarks, the candidates advised their followers to comport themselves during the December polls for peace to prevail.