Ghanaian Graduates Not Enough to Fill Vacancies in the BPO Industry

- Dowokpor

The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has indicated its intention to develop Ghana’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry as one of the ways of solving the high graduate unemployment facing the youth in the country within two years.

It said the BPO industry alone could employ all the graduates churned out of the country’s tertiary institutions every year with additional space for Senior High School graduates who could be taken through special fast track training programmes to make them employable in the industry.

The proposed initiative to solve graduate unemployment was made known, Tuesday night on Radio Universe, the University of Ghana’s community radio station, by William Dowokpor, PPP Parliamentary Candidate for the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency, when he took his turn on the station’s new political programme the “Electorate”.

He said the large number of graduates the nation produces every year should not be seen as a problem because they can not get immediate employment. The development should rather be seen as a demographic advantage for the development of BPO in Ghana.

Explaining Ghana’s comparative advantage in the industry, William Dowokpor listed the use of English language as the official medium of communication, affable and trainable nature of Ghanaians, inexpensive labour cost, positive outlook and growing use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) by the youth, as well as political stability in the country.

The PPP candidate was however quick to point out that Ghana’s BPO industry can not take off and thrive without reliable electricity and broadband internet access, the key infrastructure for sustenance of the industry, assuring that the PPP will provide abundant and affordable energy with a sense of urgency for industrialisation and rapid development in all spheres of the new diversified Ghanaian economy it will deliver when it wins the 2012 general elections.

“As part the PPP’s overall energy policy, we will deliver the electricity and reliable broadband internet solutions with a sense of urgency to meet the requirements for industry and domestic use, while making Ghana a net exporter of power again, in four years, by providing tax incentives to encourage the aggressive development of alternative sources of power through bio fuels and solar energy” he said.

Besides facilitating sustainable youth employment and reliability in utility and public services, the PPP candidate said he would work in collaboration with all Residents’ Associations, the Police and public spirited persons living and working in the constituency to ensure security to life and property through communal work and the community policing system.

He pledged to use all the advocacy tools at his disposal as an MP when elected to provide a strong voice for the residents adding that the hallmark of his representation of the people in the constituency will be that of involving them in the governance of the constituency, through regular engagements, seeking their opinions on local and national policy issues before taking a stand as their representative.

Recounting how constituents rallied behind Hon. George Isaac Amo, a former MP of the constituency, for a landslide victory in the Parliamentary elections in the year 2000, the PPP candidate called on constituents to drop their party affiliations and vote massively for him, as he represents the change the constituency has been looking for in the last several years.

“A vote for William Dowokpor is definitely a vote for change you can see and feel in your neighbourhood for the next four years’ he recommended.