When President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on Tuesday, March 1, 2018, launched The Nations Builders Corps (NABCO) to create temporary employment to the teeming unemployed youth, the president, had no inkling the financial burden it was going to impose on the economy.
In rolling out the intervention that the president hoped, will provide some cushion to the many graduates, who have long given up hope of finding a job, he did not think through the policy well, as the flip-flopping on it, is becoming one too many.
Mr Akufo-Addo, while launching the programme was confident that by the time NABCO trainees exit scheme “the requisite work readiness skills and experience, often deemed a barrier to their employment as fresh graduates, would have been resolved.”
According to President Akufo-Addo, “NABCO will be the vehicle to deliver one hundred thousand (100,000) jobs in seven (7) prioritised areas, defined as the following modules: Educate Ghana; Heal Ghana; Feed Ghana; Revenue Ghana; Digitise Ghana; Enterprise Ghana; and Civic Ghana.”
With many people still trying to recover from the effect of the coronavirus pandemic, it came as a surprise when government announced the end of the NABCO programme.
For the third time, the government had to beat a retreat and ask that the beneficiaries remain at post.
This newspaper is worried about the posture the government has adopted. For a country whose largest demography is its youths, it remains a depressing irony that their future hangs in the balance.
It would seem like the government, has little or no regard for its young’s future judging by the way it has handled the beneficiaries of NABCO.
It is trite to assert that the youth are the future of this country. Therefore, the quality of the youth the nation is breeding today will definitely reflect on the adults and leaders of tomorrow.
