The Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress(NDC), former President John Mahama, has assured civil society groups on women empowerment the Affirmative Action Bill will be passed into law when the NDC wins the December 7, 2020 polls.
He stressed that the NDC’s endorsement of Professor Naana Opoku-Agyemang as his running mate was a clear indication that the party was committed and determined to addressing the gender disparity and discrimination against women.
Former President Mahama gave the assurance when he addressed party supporters, members, faithful and sympathisers at Pusiga in the Upper East Region on Monday as part of his three-day campaign tour of the region.
Ghana began its quest for an affirmative action law as far back as 1998, when some guidelines were passed by Cabinet however, as of June 2020, the bill has still not been passed.
Ghana’s Affirmative Action Bill defines affirmative action as “a set of measures adopted by the government, public and private institutions to address history of systemic discrimination and exclusion of women and to encourage their efforts towards addressing political, social, cultural, economic and educational gender imbalance in the public and private sectors in accordance with clause (4) of article 17 of the Constitution.”
The bill seeks to promote progressive increase in active participation of women in public life from minimum of 40 per cent to a parity of 50 per cent by 2030 in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Former President Mahama promised to empower the youth with employment avenues in areas of recruitment to grow trees in the country particularly the northern part, establish mechanisation centres, provide tractor services to venture into commercial farming, settle cost later after harvesting and sales to ready markets and expressed disappointment about poor execution of some policies, programmes and social interventions of the government including One Village,One Dam and One Million per a constituency in a year.
He blamed the NPP for stalling most projects initiated by the NDC such as the Rural Electrification Project, Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds, Senior High School infrastructure, free maternal health care and appealed to the electorate to endorse the NDC to ensure completion of abandoned projects.
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