Eight District Assemblies in C/R to benefit from ILO assistance

Agona Swedru, Sept 5 GNA- Mr Patrice A. Sowah, National Project Officer, International Labour Organization (ILO), has called on District and Municipal Assemblies to take advantage of the organisation's Enterprise Development Fund ILO to create jobs for rural and urban dwellers.

He said the ILO has disbursed 40,000 dollars to each of the eight selected District and Municipal Assemblies in the Central Region to support small and medium enterprises.

They are Agona West, Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam, Effutu, Awutu Senya, Gomoa East, Twifo Hemang Lower Denkyira, Mfantsiman and Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa Districts. Mr Sowah said these when he inaugurated the Agona West Municipal Employment taskforce at Agona Swedru. He announced that ILO had released 40,000 dollars to the Agona West Assembly for disbursement to private businessmen and women and other individuals to improve their businesses. The Project Officer said the ILO would ensure that social protection and labour standards and other related labour issues prevail to promote industrial harmony.

Mr Sowah said some youth have taken to alcoholism and the use of drugs because they were employed adding that they were destroying their bodies and minds. Mr Jacob Felix Obeng-Forson, Agona West Municipal Chief Executive, said workers under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) would be helped to contribute to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).

He said it is not true that government was going to dismiss workers of NYEP as being speculated in various parts of the country. Mr Obeng-Forson said the government would employ over 100,000 people in the areas of health, education, sanitation, community policing and others to reduce unemployment rate under the NYEP. The MCE pledged the assembly preparedness to pay its counterpart fund of 20,000 Ghana Cedis to support the ILO programme.