PRESS RELEASE

Unemployed Graduates Association of Ghana (UGAG) is a non-partisan organization which seeks to promote the well-being of all unemployed graduates in Ghana by bringing our predicament to the door-step of the powers that be, and to also ensure that our life and image is given the needed attention. We have a registered membership of over 3,500 across the country. It is our affirmed aim to ensure that all unemployed graduates in Ghana become members so that the plight of the unemployed graduate and all left high and dry youth can be pursued cohesively for the betterment of our dear nation.

We, the members of UGAG, wish to state here and now that, the NDC government and the erstwhile Kuffour’s NPP administration have failed the youth of this country and continue to subject the young graduates of this nation to undue deprivation of better job opportunities. In recent times, we have seen, heard and read several publications and documentaries, highlighting the unknown achievements of the NDC government under the stewardship of H.E. Prof. J.E.A. Mills’ for the past two years. Anybody who has taken a critical look at these publications and its achievements would realize that there was little or no mention of matters relating to how the NDC government has addressed the issue of unemployment or seeks to put in place the necessary mechanisms to address the ascending rate of unemployment. This is where we find it rather unfair, for the NDC government to have failed to act aptly to respond to this plight of young graduates in the country.

This is a bona fide negligence and a disappointment on the part of the government of the day.

We believe that whether life is perceived as perfect or imperfect, sweet or sour it depends on man’s capabilities and abilities to make earns meet for survival. In the absence of good job or employment, the youth will surely fall astray or become ‘USELESS’. The standard of living is definitely bound to deteriorate if proper attention is not given to the phase of unemployment.
Everybody will agree with us that the human resource currently available in Ghana could have qualified this nation to be one of the most modernized countries in the world many decades ago and brought us into the limelight as pioneers of development. The gap is still going to exist between the advanced nations and developing ones, unless critical attention is given to the rate of unemployment in Ghana today. Indeed, considering the abundance of natural resources bestowed on us by God Almighty, we find it extremely convoluted to appreciate why our leaders have failed to provide the needed industrialization programmes for this country.

We hold the strict conviction that the problem of underdevelopment can be traced to the inability of the Government concerned to utilize or take advantage of the human resource through employment to the merit of the nation. Under no condition can a nation avoid the plight of the unemployed persons behind if it really wants to develop.

Currently, looming over the head of Ghana as a country is the high incidence of unemployment and underemployment with the number getting bigger every moment. This trend would not have been bitter to swallow, if unemployment had remained within the ranks of the less academically qualified. We are very frustrated in getting employment and even sectors which have been ever willing to swallow the backlog of unemployed educated youth, are not showing signs of employment openings. This is very threatening considering the over 68,000 plus who graduate from our tertiary institutions every year.

Why should the advanced countries that are already improved, need more and more people to solve their problems, whiles a developing nation like Ghana rather say its system is choked or saturated? This is outrageous and offensive to the integrity of the graduate!

If we are better managed and absorbed into companies and institutions, we will become useful citizens and increase the national wealth. On the other hand, we have been poorly managed and we are gradually becoming liabilities and a waste to the society.

In the past, unemployment was within the ranks of only illiterates but today, it has affected J.S.S. and S.S.S., leavers. It is quite sad that Tertiary graduates are also vulnerable to this syndrome. This has contributed to the rapid influx of many youths from other parts of the country to the major cities like Kumasi, Takoradi and Accra. It is not astonishing that the nation is currently grappling with the unfortunate situation of Street hawkers, “Sakawa”, Prostitution, Armed robbery and other Social Vices which has also contributed to overcrowding on the resources of the cities.

In Ghana today, there are instances where graduates have resorted to taxi driving. Is this not a waste of human resources or better still under-utilization of human resource? In some jurisdictions, it is acceptable for graduates to drive taxis to enhance efficiency but this cannot be accepted in the Ghanaian context. It is shocking to note that, a financial institution recently advertised for drivers in the dailies and it attracted over 600 graduates from within Accra and its environs. The Labour Commission of Ghana estimates the number of unemployed graduates at over 700,000 and it comprises graduates who studied from Archaeology to Zoology.

As it stands now, it appears the erstwhile NPP administration and current NDC government have demonstrated that they are less concerned or less worried about the apparent upsurge in the UNEMPLOYMENT situation in the country today, which seems to contribute to the underdevelopment of this nation. It is by this conviction that we, the members of UGAG are urging the NDC administration, the government of the day to tackle the situation of UNEMPLOYMENT with much urgency in order to avert any situation of unconditional anarchy. The government must take crucial steps to address these predicaments staring us in the face in the shortest possible time.

Very soon, we are going to hit the streets.

Signed by: Divine Nkrumah

On behalf of UGAG


Spokesperson: Divine Nkrumah
The Coordinator
Tel: 0200529563 / 0277166579
Email: pipiromedia@yahoo.com