You Can't Use Election Year Jobs To Get Our Votes

Unemployed graduates in the country say President Mahama and the National Democratic Congress are only creating “short term” jobs with few months to elections, ostensibly to win their votes.

They wonder why President Mahama would wait till until an election year before coming out with promises of creating jobs which are never honoured.

A statement signed by Desmond Bress-Biney, President of the Unemployed Graduate Association of Ghana, noted that Ghana under the presidency of John Dramani Mahama had been filed with countless “promises to finding solution to unemployment than any other government in the fourth republic. Yet, the government's approach to solving unemployment has utterly failed. The system is ineffective and it needs to change through a revolution by supporting the growth or small businesses, huge investment in agriculture, among others.”

According to the unemployed graduates, the claim by government to have provided jobs through programmes like LESDEP, GYEEDA, Youth in Agriculture among others sharply contradicts a report by the World Bank that over 48% of the youth between the ages of 15-24 are unemployed.

They further questioned how interventions such as the Youth in Community Policing, Youth in Fire Maintenance, which all sprang up before the 2012 elections, have been unable to address the unemployment situation in the country.

“Where are the jobs government created through development projects when the projects have long been completed? Where are the jobs created through LESDEP and Better Ghana Health Management all subsidiaries of the Jospong Group of Companies and the jobs created through RLG, a subsidiary of the AGAMS Group which the government proudly boasted of and associated itself with during the last election?” they asked.

President Mahama has pledged to create more jobs for the teeming number of employed Ghanaians should he be given a second term to govern the country.

According to the President, he has spent his first term fixing the macroeconomic fundamentals of the country, and is convinced that this has paved way for investments to be made in the economy which will yield the fruits in his second term.

Members of the association said they were all for any initiative that would inure to the benefit of the youth and the nation at large.

They described the “One District, One Factory” policy of Nana Addo Dankwa-Akufo-Addo as a feasible initiative that would create long-term jobs for the youth.

“The amount we lose to corruption annually and payment of unnecessary judgement debt is enough to make one factory one district feasible. Blessed with natural resources across all ten regions and fairly distributed district by district should be enough conviction and motivation. Research has also proven that with a minimum of between $1 million - $2.5 million we can set up a district base factory. If we can loan millions of dollars to construct roads which is a good project but will not yield much direct returns like a business will do, why can’t we loan to create businesses that will yield much returns to pay debt?” the statement asked.

Elucidating further, members of the association said all it will take to get the policy running is dedication and commitment through good management.

“Simply put, a cow rearing community will simply need a meat factory or a milk factory, a cassava cultivating community will need a starch factory or gari factory. A sugar cane growing community will need a sugar factory. A pig rearing community will need a pig meat factory. A maize growing community will need a kenkey factory with the modern approach to distribute food to companies or maize bear factory. A forest community will obviously need a wood factory and a bamboo community will need a toothpick factory and so on and on,” adding that millions of jobs can be created through the policy,” the statement observed.