Ms. Rosemond Obeng, Deputy National TESCON coordinator, and Former KNUST Women’s Commissioner has urged Ghanaian women to show gratitude to His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as he has shown great commitment in empowering the masses of Ghana women.
According to her, women should oppose Former President Mahama who is now trying to do damage control by using a woman in his politicking to deceive Ghanaian women to make up for being an unappealing candidate and also for his sins of being wicked to Ghanaian women in the December 7 election.
Speaking on Wontumi TV with Sammy Binfoh on Saturday,14th of November 2020; Ms. Rosemond Brown recounted how the NPP Administration has helped in empowering women, hence the reasons Ghanaian women should cast their vote for Nana Addo in this coming 7th December elections.
Emphatically, Ms. Rosemond Obeng said the Former President does not care about women and expressed this through the cancellation of the nursing allowances knowing very well the nursing profession is dominated by women nearly more than 90 percent adding “also, Mr. Mahama deliberately supervising the vindication of the Montie 3 contemnors at expense of women who had been threatened with sexual harassment. He further saw to the cancellation of the free maternal care that mothers and newborn babies were enjoying under the Kufour administration.”
“As if these were not enough, he caused and failed to solve the tragic Dumsor situation which kicked out a sizeable number of women from their business enterprises, especially those in cold store ventures: collapsing also the National Health Insurance Scheme and riddled it with severe corruption as was shown in the inefficient use of the scheme’s resources to take care of the health needs of women. President Akufo Addo came in time to expand the window of the NHIS health care system to accommodate breast cancer treatment of women termed Scheme Sereptin.
Failure to rescue business women that had their funds locked by financial institutions under his watch such as DKM in the then Brong Ahafo region knowing very well victims were mostly women and mothers who were trading in petty businesses to sustain their families. If not for the efforts and the intervention of the Akufo Addo administration that has managed to pay close to 90 percent of the claims representing 79,708 out of 99,585 claims, Ghana women would not be able to bounce back in their line of trade in other to take care of their families.”
She also advocated for women and went on to state some of the remarkable things the sitting President Nana Addo Dankwa has done to support women under his regime.
Citing from a world-class Research journal “SAGE”, the Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) states that the status of women improved from 0.473 in 1991 to 0.596 in 2006 [under the watch of Former Prez John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor] then gashed down to 0.545 in 2015 [under the watch of Former Prez John Dramani Mahama], and rose to 0.563 in 2017 after H.E Nana Akufo-Addo assumed office and has maintained the stand steadily with his women empowerment policies.
She outlined that the National Youth Authority has been resourced to train young women in dress-making as well as hairdressing; young women have also been trained in cosmetology to give ready skills to women in the country.
She made mention of women in IT, web, and digital marketing training considering how technology is now a necessary evil for any country seeking to develop.
Ms. Rosemond Obeng mentioned about 19,000 business startups in entrepreneurship under the NEIP, where women entrepreneurs have been funded between GHC10,000-Ghc100,000, which has led to about 92,000 direct and indirect startups; women with disabilities were not sidelined Under the leadership of Akufo Addo, about 850 women with disabilities were enrolled under the PEWED initiative ( Presidential Empowerment of women in Disability).
These women have benefitted from the funding of Ghc2 million to scale up their businesses.
Regarding the Ministry of Youth and Sports, she mentioned a development fund has been initiated to gear up the sporting interest of women in the country. Then again, Approximately 80% of MASLOC loans are disbursed to female applicants to scale up their businesses.
With regards to the agricultural sector, she talked about how the planting for food and jobs initiative has helped to offer a source of livelihood to women in terms of easy land acquisition, the large scale of food products and so forth. Also, the impact of unprecedented Free Senior High school policy on empowering women cannot be overlooked.
She also commended the efforts of the first and second lady of the land, Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo, and Mrs. Samira Bawumia. She outlined how the First Lady has used her foundation in securing NICU and PICU at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and also a baby and mother care unit at KATH in Kumasi.
She also outlined how the First Lady has also built four (4) libraries in four (4) Regions namely Bono, Upper West, Central, and Western North Regions among many other things she has done.
The second lady, Mrs. Bawumia was also in focus with her Samira Bawumia Empowerment Project where she has trained over 1600 young ladies in shea butter making at the North and also continues to empower young ladies across the 16 Regions.
She also mentioned literacy competitions and training aimed at empowering young women to improve their reading and writing skills not forgetting how she organized competent teachers to take children who were about to sit for BECE AND WASSCE extra classes as a form of revision to see them excel for their exams.
The Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare was also commended for her ability to coordinate the affairs of the various sector Ministries under the Akufo-Addo administration.
She, therefore, urged Ghanaian women and the youth to endorse 4more for Nana to do more for women in order to continue the good work he has started for women and the nation.