Gov’t Must Tackle Youth Unemployment Seriously-Sammy Awuku

The National Youth Organizer of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Sammy Awuku, has charged the government to tackle youth unemployment with all seriousness in order to give hope to the youth.

According to him, the NPP government led by President Akufo-Addo must not pay lip service to issues of youth unemployment, as was done by the previous administration.

“I want the NPP government, that the youth of our country overwhelmingly voted for during the December 2016, to also move beyond the paper talk when we are talking about unemployment,” he said.

Speaking at a Presidential Youth Dialogue organized by the National Youth Authority (NYA) to mark the International Youth Day on August 12, 2017, Sammy Awuku said government needed to fight the growing unemployment because it is the biggest obstacle to youth development, adding that “it’s also the biggest challenge to Africa’s security.”

He said tackling youth unemployment would go a long way to minimize youth agitations in the country.

“I’m convinced that if many of our youth are employed, we wouldn’t be seeing much of the agitations,” he said.

Sammy Awuku, who expressed confidence in the government's ability to tackling youth unemployment, stressed the need for government to quicken processes to ensure that its programmes and policies aimed at resolving youth unemployment in the country are implemented.

He urged the youth to take advantage of the government's 'planting for Food and Jobs' policy and other programmes which have been rolled out instead of looking for white-collar jobs.

Sammy Awuku who condemned recent agitations by supporters of the party further urged the youth to desist from what he described as unnecessary agitations some of which led to the seizing of public toilets and offices which have, to some extent, given the government bad publicity.

“It doesn’t make us look good when we seize car parks...it weakens our fronts when we are seizing office. In any case, when you seize that office, you cannot be the District Director and if you sack the person who is occupying that office and you go to sit there, that doesn’t mean your name is in the controller and accountant general's books...you’re only occupying space," he concluded.

Story By: Michael Creg Afful

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