Executive Director of Institute for Liberty and Policy Innovation (ILAPI), Peter Bismark Kwofie has suggeated for the Youstart initiative to be scrapped.
He believes such a move will save the country Ghc2 billion annuallly.
He asserted that tge country lacks the needed resources to run the policy.
He said contrary to the proposed amount, the government would need more than that amount to effectively run it.
He referenced how the Nation Builders’ Corps ended abrubtly due to lack of funds.
He stated that the government must learn from that and scrap the initiative.
He further argued that the economy is in distress and the policy must be scrapped.
“Under this distress economy, I think YoutStart must equally be scrapped. The YouStart program also has no measurable policy impact to address youth unemployment and looks more of a vote buying employment policy.”
Read the full statement below
Scrap YouStart to safe Ghana Over GH2 billion annually
NABCO and 1-Constituency-1 million Dollars have been scrapped according to the Deputy Finance Minister, Abena Osei-Asare. No clear reasons were given for the scraps.
This I could deduce as a results of lack of funds to undertake such programs. The Deputy Finance did not talk about another expensive government employment program, the YouStart which is equally an employment program taking the place of NABCO.
Government will need more than GH2 Billion annually to ensure YouStart is able to achieve its intent. However, the distress economy under the Domestic Debt Restructuring program cannot have the needed funds to ensure effective outcomes of the program.
It could be important to scrap the YouStart to safe Ghana from more wasteful expenditures just as was observed during the NABCO implementation.
NABCO ended abruptly in 2020 due to lack of funding source and this vote buying employment intervention (YouStart) would suffer same.
Under this distress economy, I think YoutStart must equally be scrapped. The YouStart program also has no measurable policy impact to address youth unemployment and looks more of a vote buying employment policy.
Peter Bismark
Institute for Liberty and Policy Innovation (ILAPI)
Tema
