A Nine-Member newly-constituted Governing Board of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) has been sworn into office by the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Hon Ignatius Baffour Awuah at a short ceremony in Accra on Wednesday 13th October 2021.
The Membership of the Board was constituted by the President acting in consultation with the Council of State. The Board has Mrs. Anita Kusi Boateng, a Nominee of the President, as the Chairperson.
The members are Hon. Bright Wireko Brobbey, Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations as the representative of the Ministry, Hon. Martin Adjei Mensah Korsah, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development as the representative of the Local Government Ministry and lawyer Justin Kodua Frimpong, the CEO of YEA representing the Agency.
Others are Mr. Pius Enam Hadzide, Chief Executive Officer of the National Youth Authority (NYA) as representative of the Youth Authority, Hon. Vincent Ekow Assafuah Jnr, MP for Tafo Pankrono and a Human Resource Practitioner.
The rest are Mr. Eugene Narh Korletey, the Chief Labour Officer as a representative of the Labour Department, Dr Eric Yeboah, a representative of the Private sector and Madam Lawrencia Ahema Adams, also a representative from the Private sector.
The Minister charged them to work strenuously to reduce drastically the 4.5% unemployment rate in the country. According to the Minister, the trend indicated a low rate and there was the need to sustain or reduce it further.
To that effect, he tasked them to come up with sustainable programmes to address the needs of the teeming unemployed youth
He suggested that in fashioning out their programmes the team could scrutinise the law governing the operations of the Agency and if need be advice the Ministry for the necessary review.
The Minister drew the new Board’s attention to laudable programmes yet to be implemented by the Agency such as the Work Abroad Project and the Artisans Directory and exhorted them to act expeditiously to see to their roll-out.
Touching on the Job Centre, he advised that it had concentrated mainly in Accra and suggested to the Board to ensure it was decentralised for the other regions to benefit from the concept. On the Regional Flagship Projects, he tasked the Board to take the necessary steps to ensure each region have a flagship project that was sustainable to provide regular income to the youth.
In their acceptance remark, Dr. Eric Yeboah expressed gratitude of the Board membership to His Excellency the President for the confidence reposed in them to serve the nation.
He assured the Minister that they would rally their varied experience and backgrounds on board to deliver the task assigned to them.
