WE MUST APPRECIATE HOW FAR WE HAVE COME

A major characteristic of the New Patriotic Party, as a government in power, is not only seen in its ability to support businesses and the industrial sector to deliver jobs and livelihoods, but also make health care more accessible to the vulnerable, especially women and children as well as the aged.

From the JA Kufuor administration into the tenure of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the commitment to put the entire population on a programme that makes life worth living has been manifest, regardless of the legacies both Presidents came to meet and the tricky challenges that confronted them.

Several nagging hurdles had confronted the nation under NPP administrations whenever they had taken power. They included broken down health and education systems, proportional reduction in tax revenue, lack of access to social protection, slump in the mining and cocoa sectors, as well as suspect efforts at sustaining energy and water resources.

More harrowing had been the spectre of joblessness, especially among the youth, with industry having collapsed under a government that had threatened businesspeople for two decades. That was in addition to sending masses of workers home under a structural adjustment programme, which put more pressure on parents to sufficiently educate kids to move up and access gainful employment.

Bold attempts

As every objective-minded person would admit, the youth unemployment legacy the government of Nana Akufo-Addo, particularly, inherited posed a very critical challenge. That was because the predecessor administration had decided not to take on board for employment whole batches of nurses and teachers and other graduates, who would be needed in various sectors to support the state machinery, because of an IMF programme.

It is still interesting that government managed to set aside a string of taxes that it could have benefited from to focus on productivity, with the youth at the centre, in improving lives and livelihoods.

It did this not only through programmed creation of straightforward jobs like recruitment into the public sector, but also through opportunities for university and SHS graduates to earn modest allowances, with hopes of being employed in the future. Again, that was in addition to skills training and natural resources regeneration programmes targeted at addressing the lingering national challenge.

And we must remember that all these are still ongoing, against the backdrop of tight budgetary strings occasioned by a raging conflict in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic, which have dealt a devastating blow to the global economy.

Sustaining the tempo

The National Youth Authority’s current initiative to take the innovative job creation agenda a notch higher deserves some commendation, especially as the government breaks its back in surmounting hurdles for the collective benefit of citizens, particularly our teeming youth.

As the Vice-President stated at the launch, the National Youth Volunteers Programme is not only being put in place to evoke a spirit of nationalism into some 100,000 youth between 18 to 35, but also ignite their latent energies for national reconstructive efforts in several sectors, including agriculture, education and health, infrastructure and afforestation.

Additionally, such energies will be going into community self-help programmes, tourism, science and research, among others.

With the focus on fixing basic problems in communities and the environment over sustained period of time, there is no reason why the respective sectors would not tick in terms of growth and value addition or even revenue to support national development.

Certainly, this is tangible and relevant effort at problem-solving, which we must all appreciate as Ghanaians wishing the best for our country, especially when we look back at how far we have come as a nation.