A student of the Kumasi Technical University has revealed that the current economic hardship forces him and his colleagues to eat once daily and even sleep on empty stomachs sometimes.
At the day two of the Ghana Maakye People’s Assembly Thursday, September 29, 2022, one of the students who identified himself as Bismark Ofori Akoto cried out that he eats only once in a day with a football formation of 0-1-0, 1-0-0 or 1-0-0 due to the current economic hardship in Ghana.
He explained that “my parents are cocoa farmers and little have been done to increase prices of cocoa so my parents give me same amount of money since last two years yet prices of food and transportation are very costly especially on campus so some of us we have to strategise and eat once daily because we can’t afford to eat more than one on campus.”
He further explained that the state of Ghana’s economy has taken a punch on students livehood on campus and “we the students are really at the mercy of the economic crunch as most of us are unable to afford a three square meal daily.”
“I dont even eat any better meal when I wake up in a day. I only eat gɔbɛ (gari and beans) with enough gari once in a day either in the morning (1-0-0) or afternoon (0-1-0) till the next day because the cost of living in this country is throat cutting,” he cried out.
He added saying “even when a lecturer is in class, I am unable to concentrate because of hunger. I am always praying that he leaves early so that I can go and find something to eat because there is no way I can concentrate in class on an empty stomach”. The situation, if nothing is done about it, will churn out illiterate graduates because we can’t even focus and learn on empty stomachs.”
He later added that they sometimes miss out on lectures due to the hikes in transportation which they find it difficult affording.
“We are the future leaders of this nation but the current cost of living in the country is affecting our lives and education negatively and this may have a dire effect on the human resource development and productivity in the future,” he lamented.
He therefore called on the president of the republic and major stakeholders to review some government policies and expenditures to alleviate the ordinary Ghanaian from the excruciating poverty.
By Nana Asenso Mensah|AkomaFM|Onuaonline.com
