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The Eastern regional representative of the Council of State, Nana Kodua Kesse II, has described as misrepresentation and distorted fact, publications in a section of the media that he is on record to have said Ghanaians are suffering under the economic hardship of President John Mahama.

Speaking to the DAILY HERITAGE in Koforidua, Nana Kodua Kesse, who is the Chief of Oyoko in the New Juaben Traditional area, explained that he has been taken out context by the media, adding that the publication by the media was an illusion.

According to the Oyokohene, during his closing remarks at the regional launch of the Ovation Magazine held last Friday in Koforidua , he was drawing the attention of the youth to the fact that ,”times are changing and the era where manna falls from heaven to feed people has past; ,therefore naturally people all over the world are complaining about high cost of living, so I advise the youth to take their studies seriously and judiciously use monies they get by limiting the expenditure on drinking and other things that are not necessary. I never made specific reference to Mahama administration.”

The chief stated that he never showed any frustrations in his illustrations as indicated in the publication. He, therefore, wants the publication to be treated with the contempt it deserves.

Below is a transcript of the chief’s speech at the programme:

Ladies and gentlemen, naturally, people are saying the situation is very hard, cost of living has become unbearable, but there must be a cause. I was telling somebody this morning from the time Kwame Nkrumah became President of Ghana, there hasn’t been a period when any government has been able to feed people freely, give money freely, we continue to experience this hard times, however, there must be a cause and we should try to analyse the situation and find solutions to some of these problems that we are all encountering.

Sometimes, immediately they leave office in the cause of the day, they go to the spot, give me two bottles of beer before they get to the house. They don’t even give money to the wife, but you see him at the spot taking two bottles. I am not saying we should not enjoy life, but we should do that in moderation.

Let us try to take care of whatever we receive, make sure we take care of the family before at least go to the spot to enjoy life which may not even be necessary. Take your studies serious and at the end of the day, go out with flying colours and if you are lucky to be employed at any institution, do not go to be a non-working worker where you go to the work place instead of doing the work you are supposed to do, you will be on phone conversing with your friends and the work will be there, wasting special time on your phone.

Please don’t be one of the non-working workers. Ghana is suffering because there are a lot of people who are being paid on the work they are not doing. Rome was not built in a day, he cannot do everything in this short period, therefore, let us try to bare with him, those who are crying for roads, crying for hospital ,crying for water, at least your time will come and you will have your turn.

Unemployment

This morning, the president was telling you the workforce employs only 600,000 out of a population of 27 million. Now, let us consider institutions that turn out these graduates. Quiet recently the introduction of Technical University has brought about 30 tertiary institutions including the polytechnics which have now been turned into universities. If every institution will produce 500 graduates and we have 30 universities, we will get about 15,000.

Considering the numbers of people who go on retirement every year, you could see that the job market itself is choked; therefore it will not be possible to engage all people who are churned out of the university every year. It is most unfortunate politicians are playing politics with this unemployment issue. The time has come that we take this issue as national issue and not a political issue.

Ladies and gentlemen, our young graduates who are coming up, let us try to analyse the situation and try to change, at least when you go out, you will be able to establish your own business because the president has already initiated that policy.