Employees under the National Youth Employment Agency (YEA), will receive over GHc 1,000 as their end of service benefit for the two-years period of their engagement, to enable them take up entrepreneurial ventures.
An amount of GHC45.00 will be deducted monthly from allowances of all employees as an exit fund, and paid to employees at the end of their service as seed capital to start their own businesses.
[contextly_sidebar id=”5fVedLteV5Xn21oZBZWhRCJ4fGuyIer2″]At a press briefing in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of YEA In-charge of Operations, Luke Atazona, said the essence of the exit fund is to support employees who end their tenure of engagement to set up their own business enterprises with technical and skills training support from the agency.
“What happened is that, in the past people came into this programme, once they existed they join the unemployed group again so what we are doing with the exit fund, is to support beneficiaries to pursue higher education and also provide seed capital for those with entrepreneurial skills to exploit other opportunities after the two-years contract with YEA”
Mr. Atazona described the unemployment phenomenon in Ghana as a result of oversupply of labor and the seemingly mismatch in the labor market, but was optimistic that, the YEA intervention will provide decent jobs and skills training to explore job opportunities for the teaming youth to reduce the unemployment rate in Ghana.
He stated that, over 400,000 Ghanaian youth have applied to the YEA modules for jobs, but the agency can only absorb 110,000 people.
Mr. Atazona said the remaining 300,000 applicants will be provided with capacity and career building refresher courses to compete for jobs, adding that, YEA may design other modules to absorb some within the confines of the YEA Act 887.
“We have recruited and deployed about 8,000 youth to support the Ghana police service, Prisons and Fire service while efforts are made to commence recruitment into the immigration service.
20,500 youth have also been recruited into the health assistants module and will be posted in the next two-weeks. 20,000 youth will also be recruited into the Ghana education service by September.
30,000 youth have also been enrolled into the pay-internship module, and are currently working with cooperate organizations”.
Mr. Atazona said the delay in payment of some employee’s allowances due to their biometric registration processes have been resolved, and all arrears owed employees cleared.
He vehemently warned all coordinators and directors of YEA at all levels to desist from abusing potential applicants in exchange for jobs, adding that, perpetrators of such crime will have their appointments terminated.
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana