Mr Kwarkye Darfour, the Eastern Regional Minister and Member of Parliament (MP) for Nkawkaw, has said about 9,696 youth secured jobs in the region from 2017 to 2018 under the Youth Employment and the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO).
He said under the Youth Employment Agency, 1,861 youth were employed between 2017 to 2018 adding that 1,520 were deployed to the Community Protection module; 200 to the youth in sports module and others in the Youth in Agriculture Extension amongst others.
He said about 7,835 graduates were employed in seven modules under NABCO of which 2,281 were assigned to ‘Educate Ghana’; 1,759 to ‘Revenue Ghana’ and the rest into the other modules.
Mr Darfour said this at the media soiree and stakeholders review meeting organized by the Eastern Regional branch of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) in Koforidua.
The MP said about 10 industries in the region received funding under the One District One Factory (1D1F) programme and the factories were in various sectors including timber and charcoal production; paper and garment production.
The Minister called on entrepreneurs who are looking for potential areas to do business to come to the Eastern Region to invest their resources adding that they would get all the needed support from his office and the government.
Mr Maxwell Kudekor, the Eastern Regional Chairman of GJA, in his welcoming address, said the event is to give the media opportunity to interact with its major stakeholders and heads of department in the region.
He said this will help the media to know the state of affairs in the region and maintain good rapport the stakeholders and heads of department.
Mr Kudekor said the association is still working on a project to ensure that by 2020 members could be supported to acquire plots of land to build their personal accommodation.
Nana Osim Kwatia II, the chairman for the programme and the Akuapeman Gyasehene and Amanokromhene, said journalism is about professionalism and urged journalists to work with facts.
He said there is the need for journalists to specialize in specific areas in order to attend to the needs of their profession.
Nana urged the GJA to organize the stakeholders meeting twice in a year to enable them keep abreast with developments in the region.