Youth Employment Programme receives 400,000 applications
Mr Luke Ayamga Atazoona, Deputy Chief Executive (CEO) of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), in charge of operations, has disclosed that about 400,000 Ghanaian youth have applied for the various models rolled out by the Agency.
The Deputy CEO who is also the Presiding Member of the Bongo District Assembly, made the disclosure at the weekend during a media interaction held in Bolgatanga to throw more light on the status and development of the programme.
Mr Atazoona said the programme have been over -subscribed, indicated that the Agency has the capacity to employ only 110,000 out of the more than 400,000 applicants.
He explained that youth unemployment is a global problem and attributed the phenomenon to the oversupply of labour due to the many training institutions in the country and the mismatched of the trained youth on the labour market.
“The number one problem confronting the youth is unemployment and the government under the leadership of President Mahama is putting up strategies to help mitigate the problem at stake,” he said.
He explained that as part of measures put in place to mitigate the issue include focusing more in providing job training skills and building the capacity of the unemployed youth to enable them fit into the labour market.
He said government is also in talks with the private sector to see how they could help contribute in addressing the unemployment challenges confronting the youth.
He indicated that the programme, which has been decentralised with the vision to ensure that each community in the country benefit from, has so far deployed 8,000 youth into Paid intense, Community Police Assistants, Fire Safety and Prevention, the health modules among others.
He stated that the recruitment exercise, which is ongoing is also rolling out other models including the Youth in the Afforestation programme, Youth in Agriculture, Youth in Community Health Workers, and Coastal Sanitation.
The Deputy CEO said it is not true that the programme is being politicized.
He said the Agency has instituted a number of internal mechanisms to help eliminate fraud including exit plans for the youth.
He said for instance the Agency has put in place a cashless mode of payment of allowances to the beneficiaries and also instituted a provident fund for them to ensure that they secure sustainable jobs after they have ended their services.
He said with the legal framework and instrument in place now, the beneficiaries would be paid their allowances on time.
He urged them to take their jobs seriously to enable them acquire better skills to fit into the job market.
The Upper East Regional Director of YEA, Mr Roger Ablimbisa, gave the assurance that the Agency is negotiating with other sectors to ensure that the beneficiaries are absorbed after the two -year duration of their service.
Source: GNA