It's financially unwise, a burden to give NABCO beneficiaries permanent jobs - ILAPI boss

Executive Director of Liberty and Policy Innovation (ILAPI), Peter Bismark Kwofie, has opined that the decision by the government to give Nation Builders Corp beneficiaries permanent employment is an unwise financial decision.

He said he sees no justifiable reason to give the beneficiaries permanent employment since it defeats the purpose of establishing NABCO.

He explained that the establishment of NABCO was a misplaced priority, a waste of public resources, and a political tool meant to win votes.

He said several beneficiaries had to stop the job due to frustration and delayed payments.

Speaking on Frontline on Rainbow Radio 87.5Fm, he indicated that the government's new twist to absorb the beneficiaries into the public sector, is unfounded.

“In that regard, the government is adding onto the wage bill that would lead up to more borrowing to pay salaries. The original idea to exit and create jobs in the private sector is key to addressing the unemployment issues if it’s able to work.”

According to him, “there are already trained graduate nurses and teachers who are sitting home without jobs. Why not employ them instead and allow the vote-buying NABCOrians to create their own jobs? If the government believes the private sector should lead the job creation agenda and not government then allow the recruits to set up their own businesses.”

He posited that “the government could not recruit the 100,000 trainees because of funding. Many other recruits exited the program because of frustrations and others also left for other jobs in the public sector after being able to pay huge sums for recruitments into the public sector. Some females also got married, became pregnant, and exited.

Again, there is an arrears of close to GH2 million where others must be paid 1 – 5 months or more within different districts. The administrative cost of NABCO alone is close to GH17 million from 2017 up to date including the construction of website and maintenance, procurement of clothes and T-shirts, internet etc. An amount of GH30 million was used to train Municipal and District Chief Executives to implement NABCO at the local level.

"The vote-buying employment programs is on its knees and if the government fails to allow these recruits to create jobs after October 2021, the intent of the unwritten policy of NABCO is defeated.”

In his view, “there should be existing plans for NABCO trainees now to set up their own ventures. Annually government is spending not less than $95 million dollars to train the recruits so they can exit and create jobs. Why waste the funds on them and absorbing them again into public sector?”

He further asserted that the government must focus on ways in encouraging the private sector to grow and encourage people to establish their businesses.

Mr. Kwofie added that his challenge is that the training given to the beneficiaries does not equip them enough for permanent jobs because they were given free money instead of training.