<<Print>>

�Mr. Speaker, I was encouraged and inspired by these meetings. The determined, hardworking, visionary men and women I met reaffirmed my belief that Ghanaians are more than capable of creating industries to sustain this country. I met Mr. Magnus Nunoo, President of the National Association of Sachet and Packaged Water Producers. Mr. Nunoo spoke to me with the eloquence and knowledge of an economist; and why not? Mr. Nunoo attended schools in Cape Coast, Ningo and Labone; he read Economics at Legon. Mr. Nunoo introduced the packaging of water in sachets and he now employs over 100,000 people. Mr. Nunoo even found value in his industry's waste, and became a proponent of commercial-scale plastic waste management. Mr. Speaker, at this same meeting, I also made an acquaintance of Mr. Tony Senayah, of Horseman Shoes, a company he started in 2009 by buying and selling locally made shoes from a manufacturer in Lapaz. It had always been Mr. Senayah's dream to build a vocational training institute. One day he saw a business opportunity. He realized that a lot of the young people he knew were skilled at making shoes, but beyond that they didn't know how to make their work economically viable. Suddenly he saw a way to create employment for young people. He recruited them to make the shoes that he designed. And, Mr. Speaker, I tell you: they are very nice, very comfortable shoes. In fact, I am wearing a pair right now,� His Excellency John Dramani Mahama said. This was part of the State of the Nation Address delivered by the president in Parliament on Tuesday, 27th February 2014. Commenting on this statement, Head of the Linguistics Department of the University of Ghana, Prof Kofi Agyekum, said on �Kokrokoo� that the president should not have mentioned individual names. According to the linguistics expert popularly known as Opanyin Agyekum, there are many more people in the country doing exceptionally well in their various endeavours especially in the area of manufacturing Ghanaian made products; hence if the President preferred to give any form of commendation, he should have taken time to mention every one of them. �but since its obvious he cannot mention the name of every single one of them; he should have used a collective term instead,�with the mentioning of a few names, it gives the impression that relevance has been given to only those named leaving the others�,� he opined.