<<Print>>

Former President John Dramani Mahama has promised as part of his 2020 manifesto to create more than one (1) million jobs for the teaming unemployed youth in the country should he get lucky to run the affairs of the country again.

According to him, the country is sitting on a youth time bomb with a youth bulge, explaining the main thrust for him to seek leadership again to find jobs for the young people in the country.

Speaking in an interview with Woezor TV in Keta Krachi, the Flagbearer for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) outlined lack of jobs as the main concern and challenge for the unemployed young people in the country.

He, however, added that the one (1) million job plan is the central plank of his intention to seek leadership again as his first administration saw social and economic infrastructure for development, thus he made a huge investment in infrastructure.

“In Ghana we have a youth bulge and we are sitting on a youth time bomb and that is why the main thrust of my seeking leadership again is on finding jobs for our young people. All those young people you see, the main concern and challenge they have is that they have no jobs and so for me the one million jobs plan is the central plank of my seeking leadership again,” he promised.

Former President John Mahama maintained that his next administration will focus on job creation as he has already set the tone for it by investing in social and economic infrastructure as can be seen in the country.

“In my next administration, everything will be geared towards jobs. So, it is infrastructure, it is to create jobs for young people, if it is for afforestation and natural resources, it is to create jobs for young people and so that is the thrust,” he promised.

He further mentioned that young people getting agitated and enthused in wanting to participate in political choices is to enable them make a decision that will create a better life for themselves.

Talking about the debt of the country, former President John Mahama hinted that the Akufo-Addo government has incurred a huge debt in less than 4 years in office to the tune of 140 billion; indicating that such an amount could have been put to good use for the country.

“I mean I was talking about the huge debt incurred by this government; in less than 4 years, the debt incurred by this government is 140 billion. Do you know what I could have done with 140 billion? We intend to create more than 1 million jobs in 4 years and the phase way we are going to do is to look at the public services and as I have said before, we are going to do a human resource gap analysis to see what optimum number in the public service should be and all the various sectors and base on that be able to fill in whatever gaps there are and that is the first part,” he outlined.

He again indicated that his government if he is lucky to win the 2020 general election will inject money into the infrastructural development again in the area of the construction industry, engineering sector and other sectors as it will bring a lot of artisans and everybody back into business.

“We are looking at what I call the big infrastructure push and that is going to be about an injection of 10 billion dollars to dualise our roads, to complete the 200 Senior Secondary Schools, to finish all the hospitals that we were building, to do bridges in order to open up the country and so there is going to be 10 billion dollars and we believe that that should allow the engineering sector and the construction sector, the cement sector, building materials sector to create at least 300,000 to 400,000 jobs a year”.

“The funds for afforestation, billions of dollars for afforestation; we are going to come up with a new initiative in our forestry and that is tree-growing and it is going to be in every district of this country. We are going to employ people to be involved in growing trees and reclaiming some of our lands that are spoilt and we intend to inject about some 100 to 200 million dollars into that sector. I am sure that that will create another 100,000 to 200,000 jobs in the country. We will give you the breakdown of the sectors in our manifesto,” he disclosed.