THE flag bearer of the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), Mr Emmanuel Ansah-Antwi, has said his administration will establish a $1 billion Innovation Fund to assist universities and research institutions to become the driving force in the nation’s development agenda.
He said the amount would be realised from the sale of bonds, widening of the tax net, oil revenue and two per cent of the GETFund among others.
Mr Ansah-Antwi said this when he took his turn at the presidential aspirant interaction with scientists of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Accra on Wednesday.
He was speaking on theme “Science and Technology and Innovation for the Development of Ghana; The Role of CSIR”.
He said considering education as the most important tool for sustainable development, science and technology teaching and learning would be intensified from basic schools to the tertiary level.
Mr Ansah-Antwi said this would be complemented with provision of science equipment and laboratories, libraries, computer accessories as well as science centres to provide access to entrepreneurial skills to science and engineering undergraduates and graduates would be established.
He said the DFP would also introduce Research and Development tax credits for small and large companies to activate them to support the undertaking of more research.
“A DFP government will consider carefully the advantage of creating a ministry for the science and technology or placing oversight responsibility for such a sector under the presidency to give it the necessary clout”, he said.
On agriculture, he said the DFP would use science and technology in developing the party’s policy of “Green Revolution” by modernising the agriculture to be self-sufficient for the nation and use the excess produce to feed local industries all through the use of science and technology findings.
He said since most of the worker population in the country were into agriculture, helping the industry to grow would provide satisfactory remuneration for the people.
The DFP flag bearer said in the party’s bid to provide adequate and safe housing for Ghanaians, it would support the Building and Research Unit of CSIR to come out with quality, standardised local building materials at cheaper prices.
He said for instance as a government, it would use the Pozzolana made from local clay to substitute clinker which would save the country at least $30 million per year on clinker imports.
Mr Ansah-Antwi said the DFP would vigorously support the primary health delivery system with the provision and rehabilitation of health infrastructure and deepening of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
He said the DFP would encourage sustained research into the use of plant medicine as an effective complementary health delivery system as well as offer unconditional support to researchers to find and apply the necessary curative product for HIV/AIDS, malaria, Guinea Worm, buruli ulcer among others.
He said a DFP administration would take concrete steps to encourage and support physically challenged Ghanaians to learn science.
“There is the perception that blind students cannot study science, however, with the advent of computers that have software that use mathematical simulations; our quest to give equal educational opportunities to all our citizens would be on course”, Mr Ansah-Antwi added.
He said the party would make strenuous efforts to apply science and technology in the development agenda for the three northern regions to make them the real bred basket of the nation.
“We will concentrate on crops such as rice, millet, yam, maize, shea butter, cotton, mangoes and other citrus fruits and give support in terms of subsidies and markets. This will help empower the people economically thereby, increasing their purchasing power as well as creating jobs through private participation.
The General Secretary of the DFP, Mr Bede Zieden, said the party would remove the Shea Butter from the ambit of the Cocoa Board and establish a separate board for it.
This, he said, would offer the crop the best attention for proper development to yield the required benefit for the country and the farmers as well.
In his welcome address, the Director General of the CSIR, Dr A. B. Salifu, said the council’s objectives continued to be demand-driven in focus, leading to products like fact-track cost-saving construction technologies that have been used to achieve at least 20 per cent cost and time reduction in comparison with traditional construction.
Others, he said were the all time bridge timber design and construction, roof protection development and rip-off prevention, clay products for road pavements and house buildings.
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