We are not interested in artificial job creation measures like NABCO – Mahama

President-elect, John Dramani Mahama, has expressed his intention to focus on sustainable job creation strategies, firmly rejecting what he described as “artificial initiatives” like the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) that fail to address the country’s long-term unemployment challenges.

In an interview with VOA on Saturday, December 14, Mr. Mahama critiqued the outgoing New Patriotic Party (NPP) government’s NABCO, a programme launched in 2018 to tackle graduate unemployment.

He referred to it as ineffective and unsustainable, highlighting that young people were promised jobs after three years of temporary employment and allowances but were ultimately left without permanent job opportunities.

“We are not interested in the artificial job creation measures that have been done in the past, like NABCO, where young people were taken through three years, paid an allowance and promised that they would be graduated into jobs, and at the end of the process they’ve been abandoned,” Mr. Mahama stated.

He went on to affirm his administration’s commitment to utilising the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), an existing institution, to create real opportunities for job training and orientation.

“We are not going to do those artificial job creation measures. We already have the Youth Employment Agency that is creating those opportunities for training and for orientation for jobs,” Mahama said, stressing that his focus would be on providing genuine pathways to employment rather than temporary measures.

Mahama further addressed the challenges of relying on the public sector as a primary source of employment, noting that the government sector only employs less than a million people in a country of 33 million. He asserted that the public sector could not absorb the large number of young people entering the job market.

“We think that Ghanaians are not all consigned to become employees. If you look at the government sector, the government sector employs less than a million people out of a population of 33 million. And so it’s not a viable sector where all the teeming youth can get a job,” he explained.

The President-elect argued that the real solution to youth unemployment lies in the growth of the private sector, which he promised to support more seriously than previous administrations.

“The best place to get a job would be for the private sector to grow. And in the past, we’ve done paid lip service to the private sector. It is time to take the private sector seriously, both in terms of expanding their capacity to employ, but at the same time creating opportunities for young people to create their own jobs,” he said.

With the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) now in place, Mr. Mahama highlighted that there is an opportunity for Ghanaian businesses to expand production and export goods across the continent, which could lead to more job creation.

“Now that we have the African Continental Free Trade Area, it should be possible for us to encourage Ghanaian business to take advantage of that and increase production. So that we can export to other African countries,” Mahama said, outlining his vision for an economy driven by private sector growth and regional trade.

NABCO, which originally aimed to provide temporary employment for 100,000 graduates, faced challenges, including delayed stipend payments and a lack of permanent job placements. The programme officially ended on Thursday, September 1, 2022.