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The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, says every major policy that his government has implemented, in the past year, has been essentially about the youth, assuring that his government will equip the youth with the skills that will enable them to be productive.

As a start, President Akufo-Addo has indicated that his government has established the Nation Builders Corps to employ 100,000 young persons, in 2018 alone, to assist in public sector service delivery in health, education, agriculture, sanitation and the revenue collection department of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).

“Stakeholders have had a series of meetings on this policy, and the modules have been designed for each of the designated areas. The details are currently being fine-tuned, and next month, this policy will formally take off to join the other youth employment initiatives,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo made this known on Thursday, 8th February, 2018, when he delivered his Message on the State of the Nation in Parliament.

The President also told the House that, as part of government’s efforts to create jobs, the respected Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, on Thursday morning, launched the Digital Marketing and Entrepreneurship Programme at the Accra Digital Centre.

“This programme, with ten regional training centres, has already recruited 3,000 young, unemployed people, to undergo a 3-month all-expenses-paid training. I am happy to announce that Ecobank Ghana Ltd has already offered to engage all 3,000 young people, after the training programme. This is just the tip of the iceberg,” the President assured.

It is for this reason that the President told the House that his administration can say with confidence that it is creating the atmosphere needed for the creation of jobs, easily the most urgent problem that faces the government and the nation.

His government, the President indicated, has put in place the structures to help small and medium scale enterprises and budding entrepreneurs through the challenging start-up years, with the availability of cheaper credit being good news for business in general, and means better prospects for jobs.

“Mr. Speaker, the subject of job creation has to be at the top of my agenda. The number of young people, who cannot find work, is staggering, and a threat to our national security. I am determined to work to guarantee and secure the future of the young men and women of our country,” the President added.

$1 million per constituency

On the need to open up the country, the President stressed that “we cannot hope to develop and transform our nation until we do so, and economic and administrative activities are spread around, and not restricted to the capital in Accra.”

To this end, Government has taken the clear and unambiguous mandate to take some of these long promised actions, indeed, to open up the country and transform our economy.

“This year we are determined to take the decisions that would change the destiny of our country. On the first working day of this year, I signed into law the Acts setting up the Development Authorities. Mr Speaker, the creation of these Authorities marks a fundamental change in how part of the development budget, i.e. the equivalent of $1 million per constituency per year, is going to be spent in our country,” the President assured.   

He stated that local people will make the decision on what their greatest needs are, and direct the funds to those areas.

“Luckily, there is some consensus on what constitutes the basic infrastructure needs in all communities, and we expect a smooth take-off in the work of these authorities. We are asking that everybody is guided by the priorities set up in the NPP Manifesto, on which we fought and won the mandate of the Ghanaian people,” President Akufo-Addo said.

He continued, “We expect, for example, the provision of water and toilets to feature prominently on the agenda of the Development Authorities, until those two items can be taken off the must-do list of all constituencies around the country. Sixty years after independence, the least we can, and should, do is to make sure that every Ghanaian has access to water and toilet facilities.”