Increase NABCo allowance to encourage productivity – Labour expert

A labour expert, Ben Arthur has appealed to government to increase the allowance being paid personnel of the Nation Builders Corps (NABCo).

He said the government should top up the about 700 cedis currently being paid the personnel under various modules to will further motivate them to work hard and also to make life easier for some of these personnel.

He made the appeal while speaking on TV3’s The Key Points news analysis show Saturday, during a discussion on the impact of the NABCo programme one year after its introduction by the government as one of several initiatives to check graduate unemployment in the country.

Hundreds of unemployed university graduates have been enrolled onto the programme under seven modules including Educate Ghana, Digitize Ghana, Heal Ghana and Revenue Ghana.

“Looking at the money and the delays, I think we have a lot of unnecessary bureaucracies in our public life…” he observed.

“…to the remuneration or the allowances that they are given, I may have to beg government to do something a little more; maybe adding 150 cedis. I think it will be okay,” he appealed.

He further said an increase in the allowance will enhance productivity.

Mr Arthur noted the success or otherwise of the NABCo initiative can only be measured by the skills acquired through the programme.

“The first thing I think we should focus on, and if we need to measure the level of achievement, we have to be able to measure how much we have impacted in terms of skills to these young ones,” he advised.

“If you look at the average age too, it is very good for us. These are people who are ready to listen, learn new skills and the rest,” he noted.

Private partnership

The labour expert charged government to intensify its partnership with the private sector in order to successfully move some of the NABCo beneficiaries into the private sector to be gainfully employed.

“What I think we are not doing too well is losing sight of the structure of the economy, we are more in the informal sector.

“Most employees are in the private sector, so any intervention like this ought to also focus on the private sector, because if you want people to be employed, the biggest basket that can contain them is the private sector,” he stated.

At the first anniversary celebration Thursday, President Nana Akufo-Addo asked Module Implementation Partners (MIPs) to prioritise the employment of trainees on the Scheme.

While appreciative of the contribution of MIPs to the Scheme, the President said the trainees deserve to be rewarded and there is no better way to do that than to employ them.

On the back of the President’s statement, Mr Arthur said government ought to go back to the drawing board and properly plan for the exit of the NABCo beneficiaries when their time working under the programme is due.

“If we want an exit plan that will be able to receive people very well,…then mathematically, logically, we need to be doing more partnerships with the private sector so that even before the maturation time, some of them will be absolved.”