YEA saves ¢ 82.5 million GH on ‘ghost name’ detection

General news for Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Source: GNA

2020-09-23

Justin Kodua Frimpong, Executive Director of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), has said that the person counting and electronic validation conducted in 2017 revealed that 17,607 non-existing beneficiaries under the Agency were receiving monthly stipends during the previous administration.

The appraisal exercise, he said, helped the Agency save GH ¢ 82.5 million annually, which would have been paid to people who were not working.

He attributed the waste of public funds to the lack of monitoring and oversight by the previous government led by the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Speaking at the inaugural updates to the nation building, hosted by the Ministry of Information in Accra, Frimpong said the Agency inherited 62,825 beneficiaries who were receiving monthly stipends.

However, after conducting a people count and electronic validation, he found that only 45,218 were actually working in the field.

In light of that, Frimpong said it strengthened its monitoring and supervision structures and introduced a more transparent and accountable payment system to prevent corruption.

The Agency, he explained, was established to provide employment opportunities to youth and alleviate poverty across the country.

The Agency had refocused its mission to be more beneficial to youth development, currently operating 14 modules with 143,953 engaged youth across the country, Frimpong said.

As part of “Youth in Elite Sports,” Frimpong said the Agency was paying monthly stipends of 500 GH ¢ 500 to help develop their talents.

Approximately 5,000 young people had also received entrepreneurial skills and had been provided with start-up kits and capital to become self-sufficient.

The support offered by the YEA had gone a long way towards reducing youth unemployment from 18 to 13 percent in the period.

The Nation Building Updates is a weekly event designed by the government to provide stakeholders and Ghanaians with detailed updates on key government interventions.

The event, held at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, had as its theme: “Leadership that pays off for young people.”

Some of the agencies that featured at the inaugural event were the National Youth Authority (NYA), the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), Nation Builders Corps. (NaBCo), the National Small-Scale Industries Board, the National Service Scheme (NSS) and the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NEIP).

The participating organizations used the platform to report on their management and report on the various social interventions in favor of young people that the Government is carrying out.

These include the CAPBUSS under the NBSSI, the YEA Job Centers, the Presidential Pitch and NEIP’s Green House project, the digitization processes at the NSS, the progression to permanent jobs under the NaBCo, and digital marketing and development of capabilities under the NYA.