Boniface lauds creation of jobs for youth

Accra, Aug. 31, GNA - Alhaji Boniface Abubakar Saddique, Minister for Manpower, Youth and Employment, on Thursday lauded the role of private initiatives that would create jobs for the unemployed youth. He said government was determined to ensure that the youth, which represented the nation's bedrock, would secure employment irrespective of their vocation.

During a tour of ZoomLion Ghana Limited, a waste management firm at Mnai Djorn, near Ashale Botwe in Accra, the Minister urged the workers who were mainly youth to work hard to make Ghana a better place to live in.


Zoomlion Ghana Limited is engaged in the manufacture of waste containers placed on trucks and tricycles.


Currently, the company is piloting the manufacture of tricycles, which go round to collect waste, mainly in the Central Business Districts of Accra and Kumasi.


It has already supplied Accra with 350 tricycles while Kumasi has been supplied with 300 with Sunyani and Tamale having 200 and 350 respectively.


The Minister stressed the need for workers to avoid laziness and stealing, which, he said, would lead to their dismissal at their work place.

He commended ZoomLion Ghana Limited for lending support in the collection of waste.


The Minister said government was not directly involved in the payment of services to the company. "They are being paid from seven sources of the economy comprising HIPC Fund, GETFund and NHIS, among others."


Mr Siddique said following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on Management Consultancy Services earlier by the Ministry, he was hopeful that each district would get 50 tricycles. He said 5,000 persons had so far been employed since the introduction of the National Youth Employment Programme.


Mr Gershon Kwame Atieku-Dzandu, Chief Engineer of the Company, who conducted the Minister round, said the company after its establishment three months ago had employed 170 youth mainly from the second cycle institutions and graduates from the Polytechnics. He said his company ventured into waste management service because of sanitation problems bedevilling the country. Mr Atieku-Dzandu said the company's vision was to be at the forefront of the country's environmental services through the use of modern technology at a competitive rate. "We are committed to providing services which would safeguard public health and prevent pollution by treating and disposing of waste safely."


Mr Atieku-Dzandu said his company, an affiliate of Zoomlion China, had zoned the country into 175 segments and expressed the hope that it would expand businesses to the northern sector.