NABCO Is Better Than Graduate Unemployment Association

We have had to revisit the issue of the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO), having discussed it in our last edition. This must be seen as an appreciation of the concept which, to all intents and purposes, seems to be the answer the perennial unemployment problem the country has faced over the years.

Since May 2018 when the programme was launched, critics ridiculed its implementation and even ruled out the possibility of its implementation.

Come to think of it that the initiative is able to provide jobs for 100,000 young men and women recruited under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government's flagship programme, Nation Builders Corps, to give graduates the opportunity to help build the country.

The 100,000 NABCO trainees would be deployed under seven models, namely Feed Ghana, Heal Ghana, Educate Ghana, Civic Ghana, Digitise Ghana, Enterprise Ghana, and Revenue Ghana to help develop the country and assist in the realisation of the government's vision of an educated population, an industrialised, robust and well-managed economy, the delivery of good governance, and for the sustenance of all these, a reliable, skilled and efficient workforce.

Enthused as we are, the concept is not only commendable, but an assurance of hope for the recruits who might have rather joined the Graduate Unemployment Association, and for that fact that, at least, a seed had been planted for the future while preparing the youth for the job market. In NABCO, we see the reality of the age-long saying that “half a loaf is better than none.”

Last year, data from the Institute of Statistics, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana, revealed that only 10 per cent of graduates find jobs after their first year of completing school.

The data also indicated that it could take up to 10 years for a large number of graduates to secure employment due to varied challenges that ranged from the lack of employable skills, unavailability of funding capital for entrepreneurship, poor attitudes of graduates towards job opportunities, as well as the low capacities of industry to absorb the huge numbers.

This is why The Chronicle is happy that the government has delivered on its agenda for jobs to tackle unemployment, somehow through NABCO, which has not only addressed economic challenges caused by lack of employment, but also arrested the security threat that borders on unemployment involving the youth.

Clearly, something is better than nothing, even if it is less than what one wanted, for which reason we implore Ghanaians to disabuse our minds of the impossibility of implementing programmes unless otherwise proven.

It has always been our position to support policies that would benefit the entire populace irrespective of one's political leanings.

Our only expectation is that the programme should be sustained, unlike the defunct National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) which had gone through several metamorphoses, and yet could not deliver.

We are, therefore, calling on Ghanaians and beneficiaries to make the initiative attractive enough to others for its successful implementation to help reduce the country’s high unemployment, and surely, we shall collectively reap the benefits soon.

Perhaps a Better Ghana where there would be no more Graduate Unemployment Association is in the offing as NABCO would enhance the dignity and self-esteem of graduates.

In his quest to execute the job agenda, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo could as well translate it as “Say and Do.”

More social interventions by the President, aside the already rolled out flagship programmes, would not be a bad idea.

Let us not concentrate all our efforts and resources in one area.