Nation Builders' Corps to Create 100,000 Jobs

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on Tuesday, launched the Nation Builders' Corps (NABCO), which is expected to employ 100,000 young graduates to assist in the public sector service delivery needs of Ghana.

NABCO's central focus is to create employment avenues and opportunities for young graduates from accredited tertiary institutions and enhance the dignity and self-esteem of the country's graduates, as well as present them with added benefits of efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of some essential public services.

Explaining the objective of establishing NABCO, President Akufo-Addo said the dreary story of youth unemployment had been a scar on the nation's history, which was further aggravated in recent times by the moratorium placed on public sector employment by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

President Akufo-Addo said in view of this predicament and mishap,the 2018 budget statement provided an indication of a new employment scheme which would tackle the issue of the growing number of unemployed graduates in the country.

He expressed the hope that by the time NABCO trainees exited the scheme, the requisite work readiness skills and experience, often deemed a barrier to their employment as fresh graduates, would have been resolved.

The President disclosed that for the attainment of equity and fairness, every constituency had a stated allocation out of the 100,000 placements, which had been worked out, based on a weighting formula to ensure that all constituencies, large or small, were adequately represented.

He said NACOB's focused was to offer employable skills to these graduates, adding "This is a modest, but important beginning towards the restoration of their dignity."

He noted further that the security offered by this graduate employment scheme implied that graduates had sufficient time to make prudent choices on their future entry onto the labour market, on potential interests of starting businesses and entrepreneurship, or even on definitive clarity on further learning options, guided by experiences and the benefit of exposure to the world of work.

Concerning persons without diplomas or degrees, the President indicated that NABCO was freeing up the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) of the burden of dealing with everything to do with employment of the youth, especially graduates.

He explained that NABCO was granting YEA extra absorptive capacity to concentrate on non-graduates, adding that while YEA would be recruiting 80,000 non-graduates this year, NABCO would recruit 100,000 graduates.

President Akufo-Addo gave the assurance that Government's commitment to job creation was unrelenting, as it would accelerate the implementation of its flagship programmes "One District One Factory", "One village One Dam", and the "Programme for Planting for Food and Jobs."

He said Government was also creating an enabling economic environment for the private sector to thrive, which will drive investment, both foreign and domestic, and, thereby, help create jobs.

President Akufo-Addo urged graduates who would qualify to enter the scheme, to own it and make something meaningful and fulfilling happen for themselves and for their country.

Be proud to say 'I am a Nation Builder', and this country will be thankful to you too for rising up to the challenge," he added.

NABCO has 7 prioritized modules: Educate Ghana; Heal Ghana; Feed Ghana; Revenue Ghana; Digitise Ghana; Enterprise Ghana; and Civic Ghana.

Module qualification and recruitment processes, as well as detailed and critical information - mode of application and many others can be found on NABCO's website (www.nabco.gov.gh).

To optimize efficiency in the processing of applications, as well as afford the opportunity for checking with other available, national databases to prevent fraud, the website has been made the only medium through which the young graduates could apply and there are no charges or costs as long as applicants are Ghanaian citizens, and have duly discharged their national service obligations.

The application processes are expected to end on 1st June, 2018 and by July 1, selected applicants would have become the country's first NABCO trainees, to be deployed after their training to start work by August 1, 2018.

Placements will last for a period of three (3) years, earning NABCO trainees a stipend of 700 Ghana cedis every month.

Beneficiaries will also receive continuous skills training and retraining on the job, both to equip and guide their future career paths.

Source: ISD (Rex Mainoo Yeboah)

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