Accra, Dec. 16, GNA - The government has increased the modules under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) from the initial eight to 19, Mr Rashid Pelpuo, Minister of Youth and Sports said.

He said the new modules include; Youth in Eco-Brigade, Youth in Afforestation, Youth in Film Industry, Youth in Trades and Vocation which encompasses grass-cutter production, Phone repairs, bamboo processing, Shea-nut processing and products, dressmaking and sachet water production. "The New Patriotic Party administration started the NYEP with eight modules, which included; Health Extension, Youth in Agriculture, Community Protection Unit, Paid Internship and Vocation Job and Community Education Assistance and Volunteer."

Mr Pelpuo, who was answering a question from Mr Osei Bonsu Amoah, NPP Member of Parliament for Aburi-Nsawam on the current state of the NYEP, said personnel under the programme stood at 45,235. He said the modules were extended to create more job opportunities for the youth and to offer alternatives for them to make choices according to their interests and fields of training.

The Minister said the four months' salary arrears of the personnel of NYEP would be paid before the Christmas holidays to make them comfortable before, during and after the yuletide.

Mr Pelpuo said the recruitment for the new modules had began in all the districts and mentioned inadequate and irregular flow of funds and the absence of legal foundation for the programme as major challenges. He said the Ministry had initiated moves to provide a legal foundation, make the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning a mandatory body that would deduct at source all funds meant for the programme and amend programmes that would subsequently provide jobs to the youth. He appealed to Parliament to support various legal arrangements and reforms the Ministry was initiating to provide the necessary legal framework within which it could create more jobs for the youth. The Youth and Sports Minister said the Ministry had finalized work on a new sports bill which was going through all the processes to be passed into law.

He said, if passed, it would eliminate all discrepancies in the Ministry including the current problems in the Ghana Olympic Committee. 16 Dec. 09