The Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, sees no point in the ‘March for justice’ demonstration embarked upon by the youth of the opposition National Democratic Congress on Tuesday, July 6, 2021.
According to him, the concerns raised by the NDC youth wing which compelled them to demonstrate, were already being addressed by the government.
“The substance of the issues they raised, economic hardships, security challenges, among others, are things that the government has already been speaking about. If you take economic challenges, in March 2020, the President forewarned us that despite the growth and gradual improvement that we were seeing, we were going to sacrifice some things to protect lives and livelihoods because we know how to bring the economy back to life, but we do not know how to bring people back to life.”
“We literally had to throw away all the gains we made three years into our first term to protect lives. Today, it has come to the point Osei-Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu foretold when reading the budget in Parliament that we are going to go through a difficult phase of recovery. Things are not the same as they were, not just in Ghana, but around the world. We have already put in place measures to revive the economy,” he defended.
Thousands of members and sympathizers of the NDC joined the march to call on the government to fix several issues in the country, including an end to the brutalization of citizens by security agencies.
Mr. Oppong Nkrumah in an interview on Eyewitness News first commended the NDC youth for “comporting themselves.”
“To a large extent, they comported themselves, and we can commend them for that. We can also commend the police and the security officers for being professional.”
On the growing concerns of insecurity in the country, Mr. Oppong Nkrumah said “this insecurity concerns they raised, even before we got here today [Monday], the government has launched a National Security Strategy.”
“Those who are tagging the phenomenon of excesses of security as new are not being truthful. What is the government doing about it? We have launched investigations and are looking at getting the report and recommendations to nip the phenomenon in the bud,” he added.
When host of Eyewitness News, Umaru Sanda Amadu, asked whether the three-member committee of inquiry constituted to probe the Ejura killings will amount to anything, the Ofoase-Ayeribi lawmaker said “words of assurances alone do not mean anything. The most important thing is that we allow the committee to finish its work and come up with a report and make recommendations. We will then decide on adopting some of the recommendations.”
“I am not sure there is going to be a white paper from this ministerial committee of inquiry, that is mostly with a Commission of inquiry. The facts and recommendations will be made public, so we decide on the next step,” he added.
‘March for justice’ demo: NDC youth petitions Nana Addo, parliament over ‘growing insecurity’
The protesting youth of the NDC on Tuesday, July 6, 2021, submitted a petition to the presidency and Parliament after their ‘March for Justice’ demonstration.
The National Youth Organizer of the party, George Opare Addo, after reading out the content of the petition, presented it to the Deputy Chief of Staff in charge of operations, Emmanuel Bossman, who gave assurances that the document will be given to President Akufo-Addo.
There have been growing concerns about the use of the military for civil events that ordinarily should be handled by the police.
The incidents that have angered many include the killing of some Ghanaians during the 2020 election, the invasion of Parliament by soldiers, the latest killing of two persons, and the injuring of four others who were protesting at Ejura in the Ashanti Region.
The brutalization of some residents of the Upper West Region in Wa by some soldiers over a supposed stolen phone has also been widely condemned.
Armed robbery and murder cases have also been on the rise in parts of the country.
Source: Citinewsroom.com