Executive Chairman of Jonah Capital, Sir Sam Jonah is urging both government and private sector businesses to create more jobs as that will help secure the peace and stability of this country.

Speaking at the 69th Annual New Year School and Conference at the University of Ghana on the theme “Job Creation for Accelerated National Development: The Role of the Private Sector”, Sir Sam Jonah said youth unemployment is a critical national issue which must be looked at and addressed by the government.

Sir Sam Jonah cited an example where over 15,000 unemployed youth stormed the El Wak Sports Stadium in Accra for recruitment procedure to be enrolled in the Ghana Immigration Service. This generated lots of controversies and backlash from the general public as it was alleged the Ghana Immigration Service did that to exploit job seekers.

According to the Ghanaian business mogul who described the situation as a “sad spectacle”, said the immigration recruitment incident tells the level of joblessness in the country which must be addressed soon before it becomes a threat to the nation.

“A fortnight ago an incident at El Wak Stadium caught the attention of all us; we saw on social media an endless queue of the youth waiting in patiently and desperately to interview for vacant job positions in the Immigration Service of Ghana. That incident loudly and eloquently captured the crisis of joblessness in our country. It was a sad spectacle,” he said.

He, therefore, called for a bold and urgent action to be taken immediately to address the country’s high unemployment rate.

“This crisis calls for bold and urgent action. Indeed the urgency of job creation becomes even more obvious when we look at Ghana’s demographics as we all know 60% of our population is under the age of 35 and in this regard I’m sure you will agree with me that unemployment in general and youth unemployment, in particular, has become a critical national security issue,” he added.