Nation Builders Corps A Good One, But . . . - Sammy Gyamfi

National Democratic Congress [NDC] communications team member, Sammy Gyamfi has embraced steps taken by government to curtail the huge level of unemployment in the country even though it is not the best Ghanaian youth and graduates have expected.

The Akufo-Addo-led NPP government, on Tuesday, launched the Nation Builder’s Corps as an alternative job creation opportunity for the country’s jobless graduates.

The programme, which is expected to create 100,000 jobs in seven sectors of the economy including Health, Education, Agriculture and ICT, also forms part of government’s commitment towards addressing the high unemployment in the country.

The programme, which will be managed by the office of the President, will focus on alleviating shortfalls in public service delivery. Beneficiaries are to receive GHc700 as monthly stipends.

But to him, a greater challenge to the programme is its “financial sustainability funding” which has not yet been allocated, making him identify the move as a “duplication of already existing modules” in our system, that are finding it difficult to pay workers on monthly basis.

“The programme is a good one, but its most important aspect which is its source of funding has been negated as if it is not needed now, when it is the most important”, Mr. Gyamfi noted.

Contributing to a panel discussion on UTV’sAdekye Nsroma’ programme, Sammy Gyamfi explained that based on his investigations made on the sources of funds to be used to pay workers of the Nation Builders’ Corps, he has found that district assembly authorities have been mandated to discharge 20% of their common fund given them to fund the project, which to him is not fair because the assembly’s are unable to sustain on those monies, therefore one can just imagine what happens next if 20% of those monies are again deducted.

“Until government dedicates a particular source of funding for this project it will not succeed, since the 20% common fund allocation is too small to fund such a cause”, he said.

Sammy Gyamfi stressed that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his government should be able to tell us “what next after the three 3 years span given this project” so that we don’t go wanting and more depressed.