President John Mahama has been challenged to go beyond parading himself as a youthful President by showing extra commitment to youth development in the country.
The National Youth Organizer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Sammy Awuku in an interview on the Point Blank segment of Eyewitness News claimed that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government has failed to adequately provide the needs of the Ghanaian youth
[contextly_sidebar id=”EwYODyIprAEPtMw5JUkg9Vj9MLZ1Fv8L”]“It’s not enough for you to say you are youthful but it is extremely important for us to admit that this youthful person has the youth at heart and that is what we are not seeing in the John Mahama administration,” he said.
Government in 2014 launched the Youth Enterprise Support (YES) initiative which is aimed at providing more jobs and opportunities for the unemployed Ghanaian youth across the country.
The YES Fund was launched in fulfillment of President Mahama’s 2012 campaign promise to support Ghanaian youth to develop their innovative ideas into viable and profitable ventures.
Various critics of the government including Sammy Awuku expressed pessimism about the impact the Fund on the lives of Ghanaian youth following the mismanagement of schemes like Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) and Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA).
According to Sammy Awuku, the youth in Ghana are not interested in hand outs but rather, “we are interested in hand ups – sustainable programmes; programmes that we can say has a future – 5-year programme, 7-year programme, 10-year programme and that is not what I am seeing with this government.”
He recalled that before the Mills-Mahama government came into power, the NPP had already put together a document “that already shaped the destiny of our country.”
The document, he said had a broader consultation with all stakeholders therefore, “the best thing this government could have done for the youth of Ghana was to build upon it…you only leave it to gather dust.”
“It took the NPP government enough time to build this solid document for the posterity and for the future of our country,” he remarked.
Mr. Awuku added that the NDC were well represented by Kofi Adams and other NDC stakeholders during the drafting of the youth policy “…if the NPP had won in 2008, we would have implemented this policy in 2009.”
He bemoaned the situation where matters concerning the youth are relegated to the background, adding that a change of government will protect and safeguard the future of the youth in Ghana.
“I think when you are in a ditch; you don’t use the same driver to get out of the ditch and that is the problem we find ourselves in now.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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