“NABCO has done a great job. For the past 3 years, after the inception of NABCO, the stipends were paid fully. Of course, typical of every new programme, you would have some challenges. When NABCO started there was the issue of delay of payments. That eventually came to pass.”
Clifford Ayaric, a member of the New Patriotic Party’s Regional Communication Team and Builsa South District Director of the Nation Builders’ Corps said this of the programme in a recent engagement on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show.
He made the comments in connection to a conversational analysis of the government’s temporary employment schemes such as the NABCO and Youth in Afforestation.
Mr. Ayaric, praising the idea of the temporary job module, admitted that after the extension of the programme, serious challenges were encountered.
“After 3 years, there was an extension. You know, with the devastating effects of COVID on the economy, the government found it difficult to say [to the trainees] that your time is up, now, go home and sit. So the government was thinking about how to engage these unemployed graduates. Government decided that the outlook of the economy was not one that was too good but we will still extend it. To that extent the government found it challenging to pay the NABCO trainees. As we speak, NABCO trainees are still owed about 8 months,” he said.
Eventually, the NABCO was phased out and replaced with the youth entrepreneurial policy, YouStart. At the official close of the NABCO programme, only about 60,000 beneficiaries have not been absorbed into permanent engagement schemes, according to Mr. Ayaric.
“The beneficiaries that were left on scheme after its closure were less than 60,000. There were about 56,000 left. What it means is that more than 40,000 who have been transitioned to permanent schemes. If I want to use my own place as an example. In Builsa South, we took 104 trainees. By the end of the programme last year, we were left with 68. Nobody would exit NABCO if he hasn’t got anything to do yet,” he said.
YouStart, according to Mr. Ayaric, is still to take off fully after its pilot last year.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
