President of policy think tank IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe, has suggested government should consider scrapping social intervention initiatives such as the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) and the Youth Enterprise Support programmes.<\/p>\n
He wants government to rather\u00a0focus on resourcing the various technical and vocational institutions to absorb such potential YEA and YES beneficiaries in a bid to equip them with employable skills for the job market.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”6XQCrsgrf8r91AKZBF9v0Gsd50AbYmYU”]Franklin Cudjoe\u2019s comment follows the announcement made by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Haruna Iddrisu, that government has blacklisted companies indicted in the GYEEDA corruption scandal.<\/p>\n
According to the Minister, government has taken such action as part of efforts to curb corruption.<\/p>\n
The GYEEDA programme, a social intervention targeting the country’s unemployed youth, was marred by some shady deals that caused the nation to lose millions of cedis.<\/p>\n
Government later ordered an investigation into the corruption scandal and changed the name to the Youth Employment Agency (YEA).<\/p>\n
But Franklin Cudjoe says \u201cit\u2019s not enough to blacklist such companies. That is unfortunately a lazy way out\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that the best thing to do is to shut down the YEA and YES and rather focus on ensuring that the technical and vocational institutions that we\u2019ve set up will be resourced and be asked to help these people. I\u2019ve told the minister directly that it\u2019s better off shutting these entities down,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The IMANI President further charged government to create a congenial environment for private business to thrive, in order to absorb more of the unemployed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs much as possible, they should be interested in ensuring that the right avenues, scenarios and the right environment exist for you and I to be able to create opportunities for people. \u00a0My challenge is that, the same state usually doesn\u2019t serve us well when it comes to the policy making angle which should deal with some of the people they consider to be poor and for which they need to salvage by creating these schemes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have an educational policy which suggests that you don\u2019t respect middle level technical manpower, you don\u2019t respect technical and vocational institutions and you don\u2019t give them the necessary support, then clearly speaking, if those who are not able to make it to the elite schools fall through the cracks, you don\u2019t salvage them by creating other parallel schemes.\u201d<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
By: Godwin A. Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n