Let’s not politicise the builders corps

Unemployment has been the bane of Ghana’s development, particularly graduate unemployment.

It is worrying that after investing life-long savings in educating our young ones, the dividends of our investments are allowed to waste without any plan or policy to put the talents of these resource-rich young ones to useful economic venture.

Hardly a day passes without evidence of fresh graduates combing the streets of our regional capitals in search of non-existent jobs.

It is worrying to see the country lose the contribution of this pool of talents.

And it is for these reasons that, Today sees the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) which was coincidentally launched at this year’s May Day held in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as a welcome news .

At least, the programme will offer about 100,000 job opportunities to the teeming youth who have received tertiary education but are struggling to find jobs, partly because of the ban placed on public sector employment by the International Monetary Fund.

We are told that, the programme which will initially operate seven (7) modules designed to meet the pressing needs of the nation, will engage the beneficiaries for three (3years) , and they are expected to earn a monthly stipend of GHC700.

But we want to believe that, this is not going to be like one of those government economic programmes we have had in the past where the intent purposes of such programmes or policies were not achieved.

Government must ensure that, the programme is sustained, and this can only be done if it operates in a transparent manner where every Ghanaian will know the nitty-gritty of the programme.

And by this, we mean, every Ghanaian citizen, irrespective of the person’s age, colour, tribe, religion or political party must not be denied of this opportunity to be employed.

That, we believe will go a long way to let Ghanaians appreciate the programme, and by so doing support it to stay.

Anything short of that, we are afraid to say the programme will not be different from other employment programmes we have had in the past.

We therefore urge the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the largest opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) not to do politics with it.

The two parties must see it as a national programme which is here to stay so that the canker called graduate unemployment can be dealt with.