GOVT TO CREATE MORE JOBS FOR THE YOUTH (PAGE 42, JUNE 14, 2010)

THE National Co-ordinator of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), Mr Abuga Pele, has stated that the government is determined to work towards further enhancing the NYEP programme to create more stop-gap jobs for the youth.
He said that would enable the teeming unemployed youth in the country to find something to do while efforts were being made to restructure the economy to help the youth find more permanent jobs.
Mr Pele was speaking at the launch of two new modules in Navrongo in the Kassena-Nankana East District and Sirigu in the Kassena-Nankana West District, both in the Upper East Region.
They are the trade and vocation module with special reference to dressmaking at Navrongo and the youth in basket weaving project established at Sirigu.
The NYEP is implementing the modules in collaboration with Asongtaba Cottage Industry and Exchange Programme (ACI and EP) and Craft Pro Limited Basket Weaving Project, which are private sector initiatives.
According to Mr Pele, that intervention and many more to be rolled out in future would succeed depending on how serious the youth embraced it. He, therefore, urged the youth engaged in the programme to eschew laziness.
The NYEP co-ordinator said the government was aware of the poverty level in the three northern regions.
He, therefore, appealed to the people in those areas to avail themselves of the interventions and develop their talents instead of migrating to the southern part of the country in search of non-existent jobs.
The Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Mark Woyongo, stated that the NYEP was a laudable programme but had been abused under the previous administration so the present government was restructuring it to make it more meaningful to the beneficiaries.
He said 110,796 youth were employed under the NYEP last year across the country, adding that the government intended to engage about 100,000 youth under the programme this year.
“Some youth are currently undergoing training under the Youth in Security Services Training at the Police Training College at Pwalugu in the region,” he said.
Mr Woyongo stated that the government had planned to enact a legislation to streamline the operations of the NYEP and establish the NYEP fund to make it a more reliable and sustainable source of funding to avoid the hiccups that the programme was currently facing.
He urged the youth who were currently unemployed to take advantage of the NYEP to develop themselves.
Mr Mark Woyongo said one of the major causes of unemployment among the youth was lack of skill training and requisite experience.
He stated that the trade and vocation modules had been designed to train the youth in artisan work, dressmaking, hairdressing, weaving and food processing to enable them to create their own jobs.
Mr Woyongo said under the youth in dressmaking project, the beneficiaries would be made to sew school uniforms for schoolchildren in the country.
He said the government perceived the private sector as the largest employer in the economy and was therefore very much determined to create an enabling environment for it to exploit its full potential towards the overall development of the country.
Mr Woyongo appealed to operators in the private sector who did not have collateral security to form groups to enable them to access credit facilities from the banks and other micro facilities such as Macro-Credit and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC).
The Executive Director of the Asongtaba Cottage Industry and Exchange Programme (ACI and EP), Dr George Agulijam, said the implementing stages of the trades and vocations module in dressmaking had four beneficiary packages, namely training, setting up capital, recovery and provision of micro-credits.
He said the programme in the Upper East Region was targeting to train 600 youth and set them up in dressmaking.
Dr Agulijam stressed that the programme had projected to train 5000 youth under the Trade and Vocation Modules in the country and to assist them to establish their own businesses.
Mr Henry Kangah of Craft Pro Limited Basket Weaving said the project was expecting to offer ready market for the straw products both locally and internationally, and urged the youth to embrace it.