"Exit" programme for beneficiaries of youth employment underway

An exit programme is being arranged for beneficiaries of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) to enable them to stay in employment after their two-year service term ends, Mr Abuga Pele, National Coordinator of the Programme, said on Monday.

He told a press conference in Accra that arrangements being implemented in conjunction with the Ministries, Departments, Agencies and private institutions would ensure that the first batch of over 30,000 youth whose tenure ended in November last year would find something doing as their exit time started from December 2009.

He said for those in the teaching and health sectors a top-up programme was being arranged for them to further train them so they could be absorbed into the system after their training to continue to provide their invaluable services to the nation.

For those under the community police programme, a similar recruitment exercise was being put in place to recruit those who put up good behaviours in the mainstream security service and other private security agencies, he said.

Mr Pele said the rest would be placed under other areas of trade and vocations, adding that no beneficiaries with affiliation with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) or other political party were being sacked.

He said all beneficiaries with various political affiliations whose tenure had expired as put in place by the originators of the NYEP in 2006, were being involved in the exit programme.

Mr Pele noted that the current government intended to maintain the two-year term for beneficiaries of the programme and that a youth employment bill was soon to be laid before parliament to help streamline things, and also look at sources of funds to pay allowances of beneficiaries.

He gave the assurance that all allowances in arrears would be paid by the close of January to the beneficiaries, and warned those who had left the system but were still conniving with officials to take allowances to stop.

Mr Pele also dismissed the current figure of 45,000 beneficiaries as false, saying when careful counting was done the number might be about 30,000.

Source: GNA