Accra, April 26, GNA – The Centre for National Interest and Research (CNIR-GH), a pressure group, has called on the youth to eschew partisanship and rise against actions that undermine the development and prosperity of the country.
Under the project dubbed the “Ghana Centenary Agenda”, the group is mobilising the youth and young adults to build an inclusive and collective society and reset the country on the path of economic growth before Ghana’s 100th independence anniversary in 2057.
The Group, in a statement signed by Mr Dzabaku Kudiabor Ocansey, Executive Director and Co-Founder, CNIR-GH, and shared with the Ghana News Agency, said the project would be launched “in the coming months”.
It also announced plans to introduce a 1.2 million community-based apprenticeship programme for the youth and middle class as part of the project.
The Group expressed concern about the slow pace of development that had bedevilled the country 67 years after independence and blamed the situation on several factors, including corruption, excessive politicisation, financial irregularities, and mismanagement of State assets.
“The country currently seems to have lost all to its growth, development, and prosperity. We need to come together as surviving youth and young adults to pursue this selfless and non-partisan development aspiration dubbed: Ghana Centenary Agenda, through the stabilisation ideology,” it said.
The CNIR-GH also expressed worry about the lack of political will to review the 1992 Constitution to correspond with contemporary governance trajectory.
The Group argued that the indemnity clauses in the current Constitution fuelled corruption and undermined accountability to the people.
“We call for a system and structure change to create Ghana’s welfare state economy in the shortest possible time for the benefit of all,” the Group said.
The CNIR-GH said the challenges confronting the country required a new kind of national political direction and thinking where political office holders would exercise their duties solely in service to the nation.
“Let us hold each and every presidential and parliamentary candidate responsible beyond their usual rubber stamped rhetorical political party campaign promises to make them responsible and not just by winning elections,” it said.
GN