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<\/p>\nVice President, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has addressed the 18th congregation of the University for Development Studies (UDS) with a firm pledge that government will soon address the problem of graduate unemployment.<\/p>\n
He said government considers graduate unemployment as a national security threat for which reason it should be solved beginning with the recruitment of 100,000 unemployed graduates in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know you are worried about jobs. Nana Akufo Add is going to take action. We have announced in the budget that graduate unemployment is something that we are going to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are setting up the Nation Builders Corps [NBC], and next year we will be hiring 100,000 graduates into the Nation Builders Corps.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will mean that on the average 462 graduates will be hired next year for every district. It will make an impact, but it will not be the end of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vice President appealed to the fresh graduates saying, \u201cMy appeal to you is to be responsible citizens by being the symbols of hope for our country and be the instruments of change that this country needs to address its development challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cI urge you to be truthful and have the love for your country and diligently work for its development. I have no doubt in my mind that you are up to the task ahead of you. Yours is to be the problem solvers, and I urge you to work hard to achieve your dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n
He thanked the UDS for designing a data required to enable government fast track the implementation of the one-district-one factory policy.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere is nothing as important as data when you are managing an economy, and so this free data you are giving Ghana we thank you very much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia reaffirmed government\u2019s promise to address the infrastructure deficit recorded at the various satellite campuses of the UDS.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can assure you that government is going to pay a very serious attention to many of the 44 projects that are ongoing for the past 14 years. Government will continue to support the growth and development of the UDS as far as practicable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI urge you to continue to rollout innovative programmes aimed at enhancing the government\u2019s development agenda and to churn out quality products.\u201d<\/p>\n
He described the free Senior High School programme as a legacy, and called for a multifaceted approach to address its challenges.<\/p>\n
Digitization\u00a0of the economy<\/b><\/p>\n
Dr. Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia explained that government\u2019s introduction of the national digital property addressing system is to establish an all-inclusive approach to economic development.<\/p>\n
He chastised doomsayers of the digital property addressing system saying, \u201cThis national address system that Ghana has implemented is more advanced than the address systems that we have in London or the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, people don\u2019t even want to think and believe that we can actually do things better than the more advanced countries. People have the mindset that we have to be behind them always but I say no, we can move forward and we can overtake them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou must have the confidence that you can do things that are better than what America or the US can do, and in Ghana we have been able to do a digital property addressing system that is better than what America or the US has.\u201d<\/p>\n
Agriculture transformation<\/strong><\/p>\n Vice President Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia said agriculture transformation remained government\u2019s topmost priority, hence the implementation of the planting for food and jobs programme.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to build an economy that can create jobs and that is why we are moving essentially and very vigorously in the direction of deepening agriculture and making sure that agric becomes the backbone of this country as well as industry.”<\/p>\n He mentioned the proposed Tamale interchange project, Tamale-Karaga, Tamale Salaga, Wa-Tumu, Nalerigu-Bunkprugu among other major road projects government intends to construct to link the three regions of the north to other parts of the country.<\/p>\n He further mentioned the construction of new bridges including those of Daboya and Nawuni, as well as the rehabilitation of the Yapei and Buipe bridges.<\/p>\n Development Authorities<\/strong><\/p>\n The Vice President posited that, the establishment of the Northern, the Middle Belt and the Coastal Development Authorities, is to collectively include the rural poor in the decision making processes of economic transformation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that development has to be at the grassroots level. For the most past years, our paradigm has been driven by a top-down development approach. When you go round the villages you know that we have been passing budgets over the last 60 years, but villages still don\u2019t have good drinking water, toilets and very basic facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere must be something wrong with this paradigm we are pursuing because it has excluded a lot of our people in the rural areas, and this is why we are implementing a new initiative that is going to be driven by the development authorities, and that initiative is the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme.\u201d Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia emphasized that, \u201cThese development authorities will become the vehicles to drive the grassroots development that we seek.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn this Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme, we are making sure that every constituency in the country every year, will obtain the equivalent of one million United States Dollars to meet basic needs of that constituency.\u201d<\/p>\n He said development authorities will partner with the UDS to smoothly implement the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme.<\/p>\n \u201cI have already spoken about the unique nature of UDS graduates. You live in the rural areas and you have a unique understanding of the development issues in many of these rural areas. I am going to ask all the development authorities to partner with the UDS in this process of bringing the development to our people.!<\/p>\n The UDS Vice Chancellor, Professor Gabriel Ayum Teye, emphasized the need for government to fix the infrastructure challenges at all their campuses.<\/p>\n He said a total of 5,565 including medical Doctors, Master’s degree and diploma graduates have been awarded certificates.<\/p>\n Professor Gabriel Ayum Teye asked the graduates to serve as ambassadors of change in their localities.<\/p>\n – Vice President, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has addressed the 18th congregation of the University for Development Studies (UDS) with a firm pledge that government will soon address the problem of graduate unemployment. He said government considers graduate unemployment as a national security threat for which reason it should be solved beginning with the recruitment of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":375374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58,10,11],"tags":[389,3,14722],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/UDS-1-1024x768.jpg\")
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\nBy: Abdul Karim Naatogmah\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"