President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said that the success or failure of his administration hinged greatly on the ability of government to create jobs for the teeming youth of Ghana.

“I do not need to repeat that the greatest challenge we face is the creation of jobs. Young people are very anxious about not finding jobs, and their parents are even more anxious about the future of their children after seeing them through school,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo who was speaking at his maiden interaction with the media at the Flagstaff House in Accra on Tuesday said: “I am well aware that the success or otherwise of my administration will be judged largely on job creation.”

He said though he inherited an economy in distress, the measures that his administration had put in place over the last six months would soon stimulate the economy and that the dividends would be manifest in the number of jobs that would be created as a result of those interventions.

The event enabled the President to render to Ghanaians, an account of his stewardship for the past six months, and to harness support for the initiatives he had espoused to change the socio-economic fortunes of Ghana.

He addressed issues ranging from the economy, security, rule of law, good governance, corruption, illegal mining, education, agriculture and infrastructural development.

President Akufo-Addo said a number of innovative interim packages had been instituted to help new entrepreneurs traverse the difficult early stages of setting up businesses, as well as the allocation of an amount of $100 million dollars as government’s contribution to support the establishment of the district enterprises, one-District-one-Factory that would generate many jobs.

Government last week launched the National Entrepreneurship and Innovations Plan (NEIP) which is an innovative scheme, under the Business Development Ministry, committing $10 million of public funds which is expected to be leveraged into $100 million from private sources to back the plan, that would help start-up businesses.

The President said an additional amount of $340 million had been leveraged from local financial institutions for the programme, with a further $2 billion, arranged a Suppliers Credit Facility from China to provide equipment, machinery and other facilities in support of the programme.

“It is now clear that this programme is destined to succeed,” he said.