General News of Saturday, 20 October 2018
Source: Myjoyonline.com
2018-10-20
Dr Oduro Osae said the burden of the programme on the nation’s purse may affect its sustainability
A governance expert has urged government to work on the sustainability of the Nations Builders Corps (NaBCo) programme as inaugurated.
“The government should develop a sustainability plan so that government will not have to cough the ¢3bn every year to support the program,” Dr. Eric Oduro Osae told Samson Lardy on Newsfile, a Joy FM/MultiTV programme, Saturday.
The Dean of Studies and Research at the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) added that “looking at the financial restraints of the country, the government cannot provide ¢3bn every time to pay the beneficiaries of NABCO.”
The programme is a government initiative to address graduate unemployment to solve social problems.
The focus of the initiative is to solve public service delivery in health, education, agriculture, technology, governance and drive revenue mobilization and collection.
President Akufo-Addo ushered recruits into the programme last Wednesday at an elaborate ceremony at the Black Star Square in Accra.
Dr Osae stated that an average turn out of graduates is about 300,000 each year and with the economy is not expanding to absorb all of the graduates stopgap measures like NABCO is commendable.
But he urged government to decentralise the programme and allow the local government to have direct access to the program to help sustainability and productivity.
According to him, giving access to the local government will allow them direct contact with the beneficiaries instead of always looking to the central government every time for the needed help.
He believes NABCO beneficiaries working with their preferred districts will help the sustainability of the program.
“The local government when given authority over the NABCO program will always be able to absorb these nation builders, pay them, put them out there to work and mobilize revenue,” Dr. Osae said.
He explained that when that revenue is generated, the pay for the nation builders will come from the revenue which will save the country more and prevent government from digging into the state’s coffers.
“Government should allow the local governments to make good use of the program and its recruits to increase productivity, revenue and reduce unemployment,” he explained.
He wants modules like Educate Ghana, Feed Ghana, Heal Ghana, Revenue Ghana, Digitise Ghana, Civic Ghana and Enterprise Ghana to be revised to meet the growing changing needs of the people.
“The continuous revision of the module will ensure the of relevance the programme to the changing needs of the citizens,” he said.
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