The debate organised by the National Commission for Civic Education(NCCE) in collaboration with the European Commission, was to be attended by Mr Kwadwo Oppong-Nkrumah of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Mr John Obiri Yeboah of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP).

Mr Daniel Chartey, Akyemmansa District Director of the NCCE expressed regret about the absence of the duo because according to him all the parliamentary candidates prior to the programme agreed to participate.

He said the debate was a platform offered to all the candidates to share their ideas and visions to their constituents to make informed choices and therefore felt it was a missed opportunity for the two who refused to attend.

Mr Chartey said the debate was based on research findings dubbed: “Election 2016: Matters of Concern to the Ghanaian Voter,” which was undertaken by the NCCE in July.  He said apart from enabling the NCCE to undertake effective civic/voter education towards the December 7 polls and beyond.

Answering questions on education, Mr Budu,  who also doubles as the District Chief Executive, said for effective supervision of education in the area, one of the things he did on assumption of office was ensuring  the decoupling of the District Education Directorate from the Brim North District.

Apart from that he made sure the government’s policy of removing schools under trees was fully implemented. He said when given the mandate to represent his people in Parliament, he would lobby for more schools to be constructed in the constituency. Mr Budu said another vision was to implement  a programme dubbed: “ One family, one graduate,” by ensuring that at least each family in the community got one graduate by using part of his Member of Parliament’s Common Fund to offer scholarships to students to the tertiary level.

Akyemmansa he said had neither a district hospital nor a resident medical officer to take care of the serious medical needs of the people and would lobby as a member of parliament to reverse the situation.  On employment Mr Budu said he would encourage more investors to set up businesses in the constituency to create job opportunities for the people apart from the oil palm extraction factory set up by Indian entrepreneurs at Brenase.

He said he facilitated the project which created employment for a lot of people in the area.

He said he would encourage the youth to form cooperatives and establish oil palm plantations, which he believed would offer them sustainable employment.