One of the contenders in the New Patriotic Party presidential race, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, has promised implementing the building of international airports in the Western, Central and Ashanti regions promised by the sitting government, apart from restoring the forts and castles as well as developing the tourist sites in those regions as a matter of course, if elected the president of Ghana. He disclosed that moves are far advanced to acquire a land between Komenda and Inchaban by the government to commence work on the second international airport, adding that it would definitely improve the economic activities in the Western and Central coastal areas. Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey, who said President Kufour's dream that the two new international airports be built in the Western and Central regions, said, when these are done, certain airlines would be mandated to fly at least twice a week to the new airports, instead of flying five days or more to the Kotoka International Airport all the time. Automatically what it means is that, it is going to link tourists to the regions and, as a result of that, many more hotels will have to be built and, by so doing, generate many more services in the regions and create more decent and productive jobs for the people, especially the youth who are facing high levels of unemployment. "The greatest challenges facing Ghana today and tomorrow are the aspirations of our young people for a decent and productive life. We already face high levels of unemployment and, each year more than 300,000 young people are leaving schools and universities to seek jobs. We must generate jobs, jobs and jobs for our youth. "We must generate jobs, jobs, jobs for our youth: this is the greatest challenge facing our nation. These young people who will not go back to the farms; indeed, if we are successful in modernizing agriculture, fewer and fewer people will be needed on the farms of Ghana," he emphasised. The presidential hopeful maintained that the unique economic benefit to this project is that, just by adding a cargo bay to it, it will automatically re-generate or re-stimulate the horticulture industry of the Central region, since the lands in the region are very good for pinneapples, lettuce and all kinds of vegetables and citrus. On Ashanti region, Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey said it has lost its agricultural status, saying that the level of cocoa produced there now was very low. He doubted the supposition that reviving the jute and shoe factories there could create the number of jobs that the people need, saying it was essential to revive other economic activities in Ashanti, apart from tourism. "The Ashantis naturally are traders. They like to explore, and so one of the things I will do as translating my vision of making Ghana the hub for West Africa is to create a special economic zone in Ashanti, where linkages will be done with businessmen from the region and manufacturers. in China, India, Dubai, and so on, such that they will ship their goods and services in large quantities and store them in Ashanti, so that people within the sub-region will fly in to buy these things. "Just as Dubai did it. It recognized that its future with oil was only 25 years, but people from other parts of the world rather fly into Dubai; buy the things from China at the same price they would have bought from Dubai and then ship them out", the former Tourism and Diasporan Relations Minister emphasised. Source: The Heritage