Government to review youth policy and enact youth Law to guide it

Wa, Aug 14, GNA - Mr. Abdul-Rashid Pelpuo, Acting Minister of Youth and Sports, said his ministry would soon establish a committee to review the current youth policy to take on board emerging ideas and the social democratic principles of the government.

He said action had been initiated to review a Draft Youth Law that is in the ministry to give the youth policy legal backing. Mr Pelpuo said this at Wa on Wednesday when he launched activities to mark International Youth Day which had the theme; "sustainability: our challenge, our future".

The day began with public lectures at Wa School for the Deaf and ended with drama, drumming and dancing performances by youth groups in the Upper West Region.

Mr. Pelpuo said NRC Decree 241, which is the existing youth law that guided all operations in the youth sector, was obsolete and was not helping the government to develop the youth sector as it would have wished.

He said some of the nation's time-tested and important cultural practices were at the verge of extinction as respect for indigenous traditional Laws and institutions that brought societies together were gradually fading out.

"Until we change our attitudes towards our traditional institutions and respect and hold in high esteem our traditional values, our future will be bleak", he said.

Mr. Pelpuo assured the youth that the National Youth Employment Programme would be strengthened to provide temporary employment for them to use as transition into permanent jobs or tertiary education. In this regard, government would engage 100,000 youth under various modules of the programme by the end of next year. He said the ministry was collaborating with Roagam Link, a private company, to train and deploy 5,000 young persons in the repairs, assembling and sale of mobile phones and associate products throughout the country.