Kumasi, July 26, GNA - Alhaji Boniface Abubakar Saddique, Minister of Manpower, Youth and Employment, on Wednesday said the Ministry would not tolerate acts of indiscipline and laxity from youth development workers.

He said, "Let us all try to live above reproach and eschew all forms of corruption, one-man-show, suspicion and mistrust and move on as partners in national development."

Alhaji Saddique gave the warning when addressing the opening session of a two-day national conference of District, Municipal, Metropolitan Youth Co-ordinators of the National Youth Council (NYC), Principals of Youth Leadership Training Institutes and officials from the Ministry in Kumasi.

The conference, under the theme, "Evolving Strategic Response to Youth Developmental concerns," would offer participants the opportunity to strategise on the Council's role in poverty reduction and wealth creation among the youth in the country.

Alhaji Saddique said Government was determined to move the status of the youth from a vulnerable section of society to positions of assertiveness to access power.

He said, "We shall not be able to achieve these objectives if youth development workers do not have a code of ethics or professional body to provide guidelines to regulate your work. I therefore, urge you to scale up your drive to establish the guild of youth development practitioners."

Alhaji Saddique noted that the present and future success of the nation depended largely on its youth and as a nation, "We need a well disciplined youth with a high sense of humour but proactive behaviour to move the nation forward."

"This essential requirement becomes a challenge for you as youth development workers to adopt strategies to shape the youth in the desired manner to achieve national development goals," he added. He said it was the Ministry's objective to bring youth organisations together with Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), the private sector, academic and training institutions to develop programmes and policies on sustainable livelihood.

Mr Edward Kofi Adomah, Acting National Youth Co-ordinator of the NYC, said the Council in a bid to resolve to positively empower the youth faced many challenges.

These, he said included low salary levels, poor service conditions, inadequate budgetary allocation to implement programmes and policies of the government.

Mr Adomah was optimistic that the challenges would be tackled and lasting solutions found to them before the end of the year.