Daily Heritage November 16

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DAILY HERITAGE THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2017
Providing 100,000 jobs should not be just mere talk
YESTERDAY, THE Minister of Finance,
Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, presented the 2018
Budget and Economic Policy of the government
to Parliament amidst the usual
booing and jeering from both sides of the
House.
The presentation of the budget, which
is a constitutional mandate, has over the
years entrenched the nation’s democracy
and given businesses and the ordinary
man the opportunity to understand government’s
policy direction to also plan for
the future.
Addressing Parliament, Mr Ofori-Atta
touched on various aspects of the economy,
including job creation, education,
agriculture, industry, energy, sports and
health among other issues.
One key area the Minister touched on
was unemployment—the cause of it and
the way to fix it—because hundreds and
thousands of Ghanaians have been consigned
to their homes due to joblessness.
On specific strategies to create jobs for
the teeming unemployed youth in the
country, the Minister announced government’s
plan to set up a Nation Builders
Corps (NBC) to provide 100, 000 jobs to
graduates through various districts across
the country.
He said the NBC would be housed
under the Office of the President as a
special initiative.
“Mr Speaker, the NBC programme
will hire 100,000 graduates in 2018 to be
posted to various districts across the
country. On average, under this programme
every district should be able to
provide jobs for 462 graduates.
“Mr Speaker, the most critical economic
problem of our time is youth unemployment,
and in particular graduate
unemployment. Available data from the
Institute of Statistics, Social and Economic
Research in March 2017 revealed
that only 10% of graduates find jobs after
their national service and it can take up to
10 years for a large number of graduates
to secure employment.
“This is due to varied challenges that
range from the lack of employable skills,
unavailability of funding capital for entrepreneurship,
as well as low capacity of
industry to absorb the huge numbers. We
must reverse this trend.”
The DAILY HERITAGE agrees
with the Minister on the brilliant diagnosis
of the unemployment situation in the
country. In fact, Mr Ofori-Atta is not the
first person to aptly put the cause of joblessness
among graduates in perspective;
leading members of past governments
have done so before.
But the country is where we are because
it has all been sweet talk, talk and
talk.
It is our hope that this time, the current
regime will make do its promise and
create the 100,000 jobs to absorb the
frustrated graduates languishing in
homes.
Fake clearing
agent jailed
BY MUNTALLA INUSAH
muntalla.inusah@dailyheritage.com.gh
AFAKE clearing
agent at the Tema
Harbour, Mr Alex
Ankomah, has
been sentenced to
18 months’ imprisonment
by the Circuit Court in
Accra for defrauding two traders
of an amount of GH¢118,
000.00.
The court, presided over by
Mr Aboagye Tandoh, in sentencing
the convict also ordered him
to pay GH¢9 600.00 in default of
which he will serve an additional
two years in jail.
The convict is said to be a fake
clearing manager at Tema Harbour
and had defrauded two fishmongers,
Esinam Akushieka
Modzaka and Diana Persia
Quashie, of a total of
GH¢118, 000.00.
This was after he, together
with one Peter Ankomah, who
has since passed on, took
GH¢ 47, 500.00 and GH¢ 71,
000.00 respectively from the
women on the pretext of supplying
them with one 40-footer container
of mackerel.
But after persistent demand
for a refund of the money, the
•Prison terms constitute one of
the ways to punish criminals
fake clearing agents went into hiding
and refused to meet the two
women. Alex was later arrested
after the issue was reported to the
police.
Brief facts
The brief facts as presented to
the court were that complainants,
Esinam Akushieka Modzaka and
Diana Persia Quashie, are traders
at Tema Fishing Harbour, and in
February 2013, Alex and Peter approached
them that they had six
containers of fish at Tema Harbour
for sale and that four had already
been bought and the
remaining two were with them.
Alex and Peter showed a carton
of the fish to Miss Modzaka
and Miss Quashie and the two
traders became convinced.
The traders became convinced
and so the two men succeeded in
collecting separate amounts of
GH¢ 47, 500.00 and GH¢ 71,
000.00 from Miss Modzaka and
Miss Quashie respectively.
Then the men promised to deliver
the fish to the two women
within three days of receipt of
the moneys but they reneged on
their promise.
After persistent demand for refund
of the moneys, Alex brought
in another carton as a sample of
what he was to supply to them.
However, the complainants’
own investigations had revealed
that the two men were not importers
of fish and as such reported
the case to the police.