Jobless Graduates Set For Demo

Unemployed graduates in the country are gearing up for what promises to be a massive demonstration to drive home their demands for employment opportunities. This, according to them, has become necessary in view of the fact that several of their appeals to government have fallen on deaf ears. A statement issued and signed by spokesman for the Unemployed Graduates Association of Ghana (UGAG), Desmond Biney, said leadership of the group would be embarking on a nationwide tour in the coming days to meet and deliberate with its members to strategise and mobilize themselves for the intended action. The event, the statement noted, �will be a major event to register our displeasure to the current order.� It was the plan of the association to touch base in every regional capital and proceed to the various districts in furtherance of the exertion. �Many of the times, when we try to explain our predicaments, people tend to call us lazy. They think we are people who are not willing to do anything good with our lives, thus, calling ourselves unemployed graduates,� he noted. The spokesman for the group thus, could not, but ask, how anybody expected a fresh graduate who had no experience, no credit records and with no property to be able to access funds from financial institution and start a new business in what he described as �a corrupt environment where even common registration of a company has to go through various hands which will demand money.� Though they claimed to have tried several job options including sometimes starting their own businesses, UGAG said, �The system does not support us to be able to do what we aspire to do.� Quite apart from that, the statement noted, �Banks demand collaterals which many of us do not have,� and �no one is willing to give us a lending hand in what we do.� Whilst admitting that government alone could not employ all Ghanaians, the Unemployed Graduates said, �We cannot blame any other body more than the government when it comes to unemployment, since we know that the government has a supervisory responsibility to ensure that both public and private institutions are doing the right things to promote development in the country.� They have called on President John Dramani Mahama and his team and all political activists and leaders in the country to see job creation as an important aspect of the country.