The three-times Presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) John Mahama has said that unemployment has gradually become a national security crisis.
According to him the rate of unemployment was so evident in the number of youth who queued up recently for limited positions in the security service.
“Unemployment has truly become a national security crisis,” he stated on Wednesday in Accra as part of his ‘Thank You Tour’.
He further described government’s figures on acclaimed jobs created as dubious adding that government created unsustainable measures that have led to the throwing back onto the street of tens of thousands of NABCO recruits with virtually no hope of finding sustainable employment.
“At the core of our message to the people of Ghana in 2020 was jobs, because the unemployment issue was staggering. And the youth bulge has surely become a major threat to our country. From all the pillars of our policy planks in the People’s Manifesto – Infrastructure for Growth, Fixing the Economy, Tax cuts for jobs, developing a Digitally Functional Economy among others, our focus was on Jobs and Prosperity for all.
“But for the actions of the Electoral Commission and the Supreme Court of Ghana, an NDC administration would have been in place today, and the implementation of our various people centred policies would have provided you, and all of us, better conditions of living than we see today.
“Unemployment continues to plague our country and it is clear this government has no sustainable plan to address it. The botched NABCO experiment has proven not to be the pathway and the means to an end. We need to come together and face youth unemployment head-on.
“The NDC’s one million (Edwumapa) Jobs Creation Plan, the free TVET and National Apprenticeship Programme as contained in our manifesto are still relevant and available for this government to draw on for implementation. If well implemented, we can create an average of 250,000 jobs every year for the youth of Ghana.
“In our manifesto, we also provided plans to make Ghana a 24-hour economy – with three shifts of 8- hours each a day. Our plan was to aggressively diversify our economy, provide more public sector jobs, enhance productivity and add value to our products for export. This would answer Goal 8 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) – Decent work and Economic Growth”, the former President said.
