Government offers employment to 3,500 people

Bepong (E/R), Nov 5, GNA- The government has offered employment to 3,500 youth throughout the country under the Skills Training and Employment Placement (STEP) programme undertaken between February and July this year.

Out of the number, the Integrated Community Centre Employable Skills (ICCES) trained 1,346 in tie-and-dye, soap, pomade and powder making, basketry, photography, food processing, garment construction, carpentry and masonry.

Dr Angela Ofori-Atta, a Deputy Minister of Manpower, Employment and Development, said this at the graduation ceremony for 15 trained youth at the Bepong ICCES Centre in the Kwahu South District.

She said the STEP programme is a follow-up to the government's national registration exercise of the unemployed to equip them with employable skills under a comprehensive programme.

ICCES centres are being opened in all the 110 districts to offer vocational, agricultural and entrepreneurial training for the graduates. Mrs Ofori-Atta urged chiefs and people of the various communities to patronise the products of the graduates as a means of providing markets for their goods.

The Deputy Minister advised the graduates to form entrepreneurship groups to make use of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) to enable them to export some of their produce.

The District Chief Executive, Mr Raymond Osafo Djan, said the district assembly had assisted a number of youth in the district to gain employment such as Assembly Guards, while 30 others are receiving training in various vocational skills at some of the country's leadership training centres.

He said the assembly would assist the 15 graduates with a loan of 7.5 million cedis from the Poverty Alleviating Fund (PAF) to commence business.