The President of Institute for Liberty and Policy Innovation (ILAPI-Ghana), Mr Peter Bismark Kwofie has stated that absorbing the non-existing 73,000 Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) recruits into the public sector defeat the purpose of the programme.
According to the policy thinktank, NABCO is a three-year training programme for only graduate unemployed in the country. The recruits are placed under training modules and exit after the three years to create jobs for themselves.
Mr Kwofie said the nature of the programme was that no seed monies were expected to be given them, however, they are paid GH¢700 monthly stipends whiles they are trained.
He said the government in a new twist is promising to absorb them into the public sector, describing the new twist to the programme as unfounded.
Speaking to the Republic Press, Mr Kwofie said the government is adding onto the wage bill that would lead up to more borrowing to pay salaries adding that the original idea to exit and create jobs in the private sector was key to addressing the unemployment issues if it’s able to work.
“There are already trained graduate nurses and teachers who are sitting home without jobs. Why not employ them instead and allow the vote buying NABCO trainees to create their own jobs? If the government believes the private sector should lead the job creation agenda and not government then allow the recruits to set up their own businesses,” he stated.
According to ILAPI, Ghana, currently, there exist less than 40,000 NABCO recruits and 254 coordinators so where from the 73,000 figure that the politicians are churning out.
“If the government could not recruit the 100,000 trainees because of funding, many other recruits exited the programme because of frustrations and others also left for other jobs in the public sector after being able to pay huge sums for recruitments into the public sector. Some females also got married, became pregnant and exited.” ILAPI stated.
He revealed that currently there is an arrears close to GH¢2 Million that government owes these recruits ranging from one to five months or more within different districts.
Speaking to the Republic Press, Mr Kwofie said the administrative cost of NABCO alone is close to GH¢17 Million from 2017 up to date including the construction of website and maintenance, procurement of clothes and T-shirts, internet and others adding that an amount of GH¢30 million was used to train Municipal and District Chief Executives to implement NABCO at the local level.
He said the vote buying employment programme is on it knees and if government fails to allow these recruits to create jobs after October 2021, the intent of the unwritten policy of NABCO is defeated.
Mr Kwofie advised there should be exiting plans for NABCO trainees now to set up their own ventures because annually government is spending not less than $95 million dollars to train the recruits so they can exit and create jobs. “Why waste the funds on them and absorbing them again into public sector?”
