Story by:Yesmeen Abubakar Tetteh
Frightened by the youth uprising in Kenya, the NPP administration has dropped some crumps to the youth of Ghana with the hope of appeasing them and forestalling a similar sentiment in Ghana says Mahama Ayariga, Member of Parliament for Bawku Central.
The banking sector collapse alone cost Ghana more than 20,000 jobs directly and indirectly. The bank workers lost their jobs. Service providers to the banks lost their jobs. Businesses and individuals who relied on their investments with the banks to run their own micro and small scale industries saw a collapse of their businesses and hence their employees lost jobs as well.
Several years down the line after the private sector has been dealt a debilitating blow and unemployment has created a very despondent youth, the NPP figures out that announcing 11,000 recruitment into the security agencies will call the nerves of the youth.
“But the refusal to use a fair and transparent process to carry out the recruitment might fuel more anger against the political class” says Mahama Ayariga. “We must fight for youth with no political connections to be given a fair and equal opportunity as citizens”.
“What is about to happen is potentially the greatest scandal in Ghana’s security sector recruitment history. This rogue exercise must be resisted” he said.
The media reported that the Interior Minister said the 11,000 recruits into the security agencies announced by Government will come from a preexisting list of youth applicants and those who are not part of the list will not be considered. It was reported that the NPP government shared 30 slots each to their Parliamentary Candidates in the forthcoming elections to distribute to their party Footsoldiers. The Minority in Parliament had called for a probe of that.
