NCCE takes parliamentary debate to Gomoa West
The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has organised a parliamentary debate for parliamentary aspirants at Gomoa West in the Central Region.
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The debate allowed the candidates of the two major political parties, Mr Alex Abban of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Mr Sam Kwesi Fletcher of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), to outline their development plans for the constituency.
The issues which were raised and asked by the moderator cut across education, employment, health, agricultural, infrastructure and poverty alleviation.
Pensions for cocoa farmers
The parliamentary aspirant of the NPP, outlining his visions for the constituency, said he would wage an advocacy to ensure that there was a pension’s scheme for cocoa farmers.
He said people who had the privilege of working at the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) had a plan in place where part of their salaries are deducted as pension but the person who plants the cocoa doesn’t have it as such.
“Why is the state not making any effort to have some kind of pensions for these people?” he questioned.
“So while the government buys the cocoa from farmers, there should be a component that would be deducted so that when the farmer is old and cannot continue with the farming activities, he or she would have something to depend on,” he stated.
“I plant my cocoa as a farmer while you sit at the office and sell but after your period as a worker you get pension but the farmer does not,” he added.
Plans of instituting a pension’s scheme for cocoa farmers has been on the drawing board of COCOBOD for sometime now but had to be suspended due to lack of a database to determine the right persons who qualified to benefit from the scheme.
The database was critical, since the cocoa farming sector had peculiar issues such as the identification of landowners of cocoa plantations and the real cocoa farmers and the agreement between the two.
Mr Abban, however, assured the constituents, majority of whom are farmers, that when voted for, he would wage a strong advocacy to put such a scheme in place.
District Development fund
The Parliamentary aspirant for the NDC, for his part, said he would institute a district development fund for the constituency.
He said the source of funding for the fund would be annual fundraising from industrious sons and daughters from Gomoa West who had been successful in life.
He said the MPs Common Fund and the District Assemblies Common Fund were not enough for the development works in the constituency and there was, therefore, the need to look at other alternative sources of funding for development works in the constituency.