GH¢111 million debt hangs over YEA

Government’s main employment vehicle, the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), is facing more than GH¢111million legacy debt, which is feared could cripple the Agency’s operations if it is forced to settle all from its budget this year.

Parliament has thus suggested strongly that the liability, which the Agency inherited from the defunct Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA), should be settled at least over the next three years.

An assessment report of the Agency by the Parliamentary Committee on Employment, Social Welfare and State Enterprises indicates that even though some members proposed that 16.78 percent of the Agency’s 2016 budget be used toward settling the liability, the Committee concluded that it would be prudent to spread it until 2019.

“The Committee considers the 16.78 percent proposal too high, and suggests that the liability should be spread and paid over a three-year period,” said Joseph Amenowode, chairman of the Committee on Employment, Social Welfare and State Enterprises.

However, members of the Committee are hopeful that the debt will be paid even before the third year and thus enable the agency to operate fully without any scars.

Set up as a successor to the troubled GYEEDA in 2015, YEA was found by the Committee to have engaged a total of 47,000 youth under its various modules. This year, President, John Mahama has pledged that the Agency will engage about 100,000 people in a year the country goes to the polls to elect a president and members of the legislature.

Already, the Labour Minister Haruna Iddrisu has hinted that the ministry will roll-out a Youth in Health module under the YEA in February this year, which he expects will provide about 20,000 jobs for people.

Mr. Iddrisu says government has made a budgetary allocation of GH¢500million to YEA for its work in 2016, amid allegations of wrongdoing and misappropriation of the Agency’s funds, with the Labour Minister being accused of making excessive demands from the agency’s coffers.

The minister is alleged to have made ‘financial demands’ on an employment agency under the ministry to finance his foreign travels.

However, the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations (MELR) has defended the transfer of part of the Youth Employment Agency’s (YEA) budgetary allocation to pre-finance Ghana’s participation in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conference in 2015.

A statement from the ministry, in reaction to some official documents circulating in the media about financial demands the ministry made on the agency, said the ministry was within the law in making the demand.