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The flag bearer of the National Democratic Party (NDP), Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, has affirmed her strong conviction to tap into the human resource capacity of queenmothers to develop the country if she is elected President in the December polls.
 
Speaking at a forum for queenmothers in Accra yesterday, the former First Lady and Founder of the NDP said a key issue on the party’s agenda was to promote technical and vocational apprenticeship, adding that queenmothers would be fully brought on board. 

Queenmothers’ forum 

The one-day programme, put together by the National Executive of the NDP, was meant to bring queenmothers in the Greater Accra Region together and educate them on their roles in society.

It was a follow-up to the forum organised in the Volta Region recently and was used to sell the policies and programmes of the party to the participants.

The programme also afforded the queenmothers the opportunity to raise concerns over issues such as early marriage, premarital sex, child abuse, drug abuse and parental care and guidance. 

Others raised concerns over issues of national development, ranging from the economy, education, health, roads, sanitation to decentralisation.  

Apprenticeship concept 

Nana Konadu said the apprenticeship concept was widely implemented in countries such as Switzerland, saying that “Ghana can do same under an NDP administration”.

She said the concept was such that children who were not academically inclined could easily be identified and given the needed vocational and technical training to become better people in future, adding that it would be entirely different from what previous governments had tried to implement.

“Our concept is such that it will not be thrown out to the people and managed anyhow. Rather, we will ensure that it is implemented adequately, since it is one of our key policies.

“Why have some European countries been able to implement this concept successfully and we are not able to do so?” she asked, and attributed that to poor leadership and mismanagement. 

Touching on the key roles queenmothers played in society, she said they would be involved if the NDP came to power in 2017.  

Decentralisation 

On decentralisation, Nana Konadu stated that it was not being implemented appropriately “and that is what we will focus on”.  

She said it was inappropriate for local government to be controlled by the central government in terms of budget and procurement, a situation she described as defeating the concept of decentralisation.

She also bemoaned the excessive taxation in the Ghanaian economy, saying it was counterproductive.

She said that her administration would put measures in place to reduce taxation.

The President of the Greater Accra Regional Queenmothers Association, Manye Amposah Dokua III, expressed appreciation for the opportunity given to the traditional leaders to put out their concerns to the NDP.

Manye Dokua, who is the Queenmother of the Osudoku Traditional Area, urged Nana Konadu not to neglect them when she won power.

She called for cooperation and collaboration among queenmothers to ensure that their concerns were always addressed.