A youth activist on Thursday appealed to the government to place the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) under the Office of the National Youth Council (NYC) to ensure that employment under the programme is equitable and non-partisan.
Mr. Abdul Rahaman Basit said the NYEP was created to equip the youth with skills to curb unemployment but the programme had turned out to become "heavily politicized and hardly do youth who belong to the other side of the political divide benefit from the programme".
Mr. Basit was addressing the third Annual Regional Youth Dialogue in Tamale that brought together youth leaders, youth community based
organisations and other stakeholders to discuss youth issues and challenges.
The forum was on the theme: "Building regional capacities for youth mobilisation and effective cooperation in a better Ghana Agenda"
"The NYC plays a coordinating role of activities of all youth organisations in the country and should be given the mandate to man the
affairs of the NYEP as the only government agency which sees to empower the youth in other for them to be agents of change", Mr. Basit said.
He said youth unemployment was a challenge facing the nation and the northern regions in particular and accounted for the migration of the youth from the area in search of greener pastures in the south.
The migration of the youth to the south, he said, had contributed to the rise in social vices such as teenage pregnancy and armed robbery since they are no jobs for them to do and they were therefore forced to engage in these activities.
Mr. Basit appealed to the youth to help promote peace, unity and reconciliation rather than involving themselves in chieftaincy and political matters.
Mr. Moses Bukari Mabengba, the Northern Regional Minister, said as part of measures to empower the youth in the region, the Ministry of Youth and Sports had money for the refurbishment of the Tamale Youth Centre.
He said the government would continue to create the enabling environment and also partner with the private sector to create jobs for them
to help eradicate poverty.
Mr. Ziblim Shaibu, Northern Regional Youth Coordinator, appealed to the FM radio stations in the Tamale to help inculcate good moral values into the youth by discouraging the use of vulgar language on the air waves, especially during live discussions and phone-in programmes.