World Bank to assist Ghana in youth skills training-Vice President

Accra, Oct 12, GNA- Vice President John Dramani Mahama on Monday announced that government would soon receive a 100 million dollar World Bank grant to train more youth to acquire skills to be self-employed and to be employable in various sectors. He said under the programme, Ghana would send a team to Kenya and Uganda to understudy their successful youth training programmes to be replicated in the country.

"Seriously speaking, if government is to succeed in all these ventures, we need to work hand in hand with the Private sector that had over the years employed more youth sustainably." Vice President Mahama announced these when a delegation from the Private Enterprise Foundation called on him at the Castle, Osu to share some of the economic measures that government could adopt to achieve better results.

The delegation was made up of representatives from the Association of Ghana Industries, Ghana Association of Bankers, Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ghana Employers Association and the Federation of the Associations of Ghanaian Exporters. Vice President said the acquisition of skills by the youth was vital, 'not only to curb the rising youth unemployment, but to increase productivity, Gross Domestic Product and Inflation which were necessary economic indicators for growth.' The Vice President said the current system where the youth were rushed into employment was not good enough to equip them to become self reliant in future.

He said they had already held discussions with the Economic Management team to empower Customs, Excise and Preventive Service to conduct accurate technological surveillance to track down all financial malpractices that would increase government revenue at the entry-points of the country.

Vice President Mahama said government would also adopt a number of public sector reforms that would increase productivity in future. "The implementation of the single spine salary structure, coupled with effective monitoring and increased supervision, I believe will eliminate all the unnecessary laxity in the system." He said government would steel itself against some of the negative practices in the private sector to bring out the best output out of all the public sector workers. Mr. Asare Akuffo, a member of the Ghana Association of Bankers, called for a dialogue between the government and the foundation to tackle some of the challenges that bedeviled growth and development in the Ghanaian economy.

He particularly called on government to consider paying arrears of contractors as a priority for them to build confidence in any future dialogue between them and other organized groups. "We in the private sector employ about 235,000 workers representing about 98 per cent of the Ghanaian workforce and it is only fair that government worked in collaboration with us for the future of this country." 12 Oct.10