Deputy Majority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has addressed the ECOWAS Parliament on the various interventions made by the government to address youth unemployment in Ghana.
He indicated that the passage of the E-levy is aimed at roping in revenues to build roads and create an entrepreneurship support base through the banks where the youth can access funds to engage in businesses and other employment avenues.
Dubbed the YouStart, the youth will be given the needed financial support where proposals would be reviewed, fine-tuned and funds released through private banks to help the youth engage in proposed businesses.
“Within the next 6 months of the implementation of the E-levy, Hon. Afenyo-Markin stated the Government can report the gains that have been made.
A lot of the youth, he observed, are looking at mainstream and formal sectors of the economy for jobs.
He urged Parliament to encourage the youth to go into the private sector since the formal sector cannot absorb all of them.
The Free SHS, he said, will bring up more graduates in the coming years since universities have had their infrastructure expanded, new ones being opened and additional ones coming on board.
Many students are graduating and many more students will be graduating and would hope to get employment in the formal sector.
This, he stressed, would bring additional pressures on the government in the area of employment.
Touching on the setting up of the National Development Bank, Hon. Afenyo-Markin said its main aim is to give support to those with private-sector ideas so that low interests loans could be given to such people.
He also touched on the 1D1F initiative which is helping the youth as many of people are encouraged to set up factories with incentives and other equally pro-business activities including tax rebates which will help businesses to employ additional hands.
In concluding his statement, the leader of the Ghanaian delegation mentioned that NaBCo was initially set up to absorb about one hundred thousand youth many of whom have since been roped into the formal sector and other areas in the Government’s overarching efforts to reduce unemployment amongst the youth.