The Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Dalex Finance, Mr Joe Jackson has described the current Nation Builders’ Corps (NaBCo) programme by the Akufo-Addo-led government as a “political gimmick”.

The financial analyst was speaking on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Wednesday, 13 November 2019, ahead of the presentation of the 2020 Budget.

Touching on the government’s special initiatives as well as his personal expectations of the budget, Mr Jackson told show host Benjamin Akakpo that: “The initiatives have been there, there’s been a lot of talk and now three years into the regime, there’s very little is on the ground. I mean there’s been a lot of launching as I call it, they launched this, they launched that, they launched that.

“I would love somebody to tell me that the 1D1F has produced a million dollars’ worth of products, has added X per cent to our GDP. That’s not happening. I would love to know the One Village-One Dam [project]; how many dams are actually in operation and how they’ve impacted agriculture. As for the One District-One million dollars, well there’s no money”, he said.

According to Mr Jackson, NaBCo is just a political gimmick being used by the government to pretend it has created jobs for unemployed graduates.

NaBCo, which was launched by President Nana Akufo-Addo on Tuesday, 1 May 2018, is government’s initiative to address graduate unemployment in the country.

Mr Jackson said: “NaBCo, for me, was always a political gimmick, it was never about providing real jobs, it was always a political gimmick”.

“We pretend to create jobs; the people pretend to work and we pretend to pay and we go through that cycle over and over again. NaBCo was not about creating real jobs. If you wanted to create real jobs, give credit to SMEs, let them create jobs in rural areas. Say for every job that I create in a rural area that employs a graduate, you’ll give me GHS200 a month.”