Government to establish a Youth Jobs and Enterprise Development Fund

President John Mahama has announced at the 68th UN General Assembly Thursday that his administration will introduce another programme to address unemployment in the country.

It is dubbed “Youth Jobs and Enterprise Development Fund”.

He said "it is our intention to bring an end to youth unemployment. What we have done in Ghana to address this issue is create the Youth Jobs and Enterprise Development Fund, a program that will provide young people with entrepreneurial skills and access to the funds needed to establish businesses or expand existing ones, thereby creating new employment opportunities."

This announcement comes after the President ordered for a prosecution of officials of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) who have been indicted in a scandalous report.

The report describes serious lapses and a disturbing trend of financial impropriety at the youth employment agency.

A finance expert Sydney Casely-Hayford called for an interim shutdown of GYEEDA saying the over GH¢1 billion that went waste to GYEEDA could have been used to build over 10,000 Senior High Schools and or to construct three of the George Walker Bush Highways (N1) for the country.

A senior member of the ruling National Democratic Congress Sam Pee Yalley also described GYEEDA report as horrible and stinky

Meanwhile, Kofi Bentil, Vice President of IMANI, a policy think-tank sees the new programme as yet another avenue for corruption.

Speaking to Joy News, he said government ought to "go slow" and think through any new programme carefully because the "problem of unemployment is wider than giving out monies to people to start or expand their business".

He said the root cause of unemployment in Ghana is a lack of quality basic education.

GYEEDA is a re-brand of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) which was introduced in 2006 by the Kufuor Administration to help address youthful unemployment in the country.

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