Ken Ofori-Atta meets Ghanaian youth today on Springboard Road Show
The Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, will today address the country’s teeming youth at the Springboard-Ghana Cares Youth Dialogue programme which will take place at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA).
The programme, which will be held on the theme: “Opportunities for Ghana’s youth under the Ghana-CARES Programme”, will bring together tertiary students, graduates and youth groups from the formal and the informal sectors.
The list of participating youth groups and institutions include the University of Ghana Business School, the Pentecost University College, the UPSA, the Methodist University College, the Wisconsin University and the Academic City University.
Others are the National Service Personnel Association (NASPA), the Design & Technology Institute (DTI), the Tema Technical Institute, the YIEDIE Youth Association and the Opportunities Industrialisation Centre, Ghana (OICG).
The rest are the National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI), the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), the Artisans Association of Ghana (AAG) and the Mastercard Foundation.
Organised by the Springboard Road Show Foundation, the Springboard Youth Dialogue is an interactive session involving Mr Ofori-Atta and young people from various institutions and organisations.
The focus of the dialogue will be on the government’s proposal to create a million jobs, stimulate innovation and start-ups and other opportunities under Ghana COVID-19 Alleviation and Revitalisation of Enterprise Support (CARES) Obaatanpa Programme.
The ultimate objective is to create awareness among young people of the new opportunities being created, get their feedback on the proposals and highlight how they can take advantage of them.
The minister, in his keynote message, is expected to give a breakdown of the key interventions and how many of the planned one million jobs each intervention will specifically create.
He will also talk about what has been done so far, the timelines for the full roll out and indicators for measurement and what young people must know, have or do to benefit from the interventions.
The Finance Minister is also expected to give a commitment to factor in the feedback of the youth into the budgeting process and also give them a sense of hope and inspiration for the future.
The Ghana CARES (Obaatanpa) programme is a bold GH¢100-billion post-COVID-19 programme to stabilise, revitalise and transform Ghana’s economy to create jobs and prosperity for Ghanaians over a three-year period.
It is sequenced in two phases: a Stabilisation Phase to run from July 2020 to the end of that year, and a medium-term Revitalisation Phase from 2021-2023.
The first phase of the programme built on the actions already taken by the government under the Coronavirus Alleviation Programme, including stabilisation of the economy, ensuring food security, support for businesses and workers, strengthening the health system and passage of legislation to facilitate quick economic recovery.
The second phase, which aims at revitalising and transforming the economy from 2021-2023 will focus on supporting commercial farming and attracting educated youth into agriculture, building Ghana’s light manufacturing sector, developing engineering/machine tools and an ICT/digital economy, developing Ghana’s housing and construction industry, reviewing and optimising the implementation of government’s flagships and key programmes, among others.
The dialogues are, therefore, to enable the Finance Minister and other officials from his ministry to expatiate on the policy intervention, which is targeted mainly at the youth and their involvement in businesses.