Takoradi, May 31, GNA 97 The Western Regional Coordinator of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), Mr Joseph Nelson, has said that recruitment into the programme would not be based on political party affiliations.

He said the NYEP is an enhanced national programme, aimed at ensuring that a significant proportion of the youth were actively engaged in some form of productive employment. Mr Nelson made these remarks in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Sekondi, on Tuesday. The Regional Coordinator disclosed that over 7000 youth had been engaged in various modules within the two years of being in office and urged the youth to visit any district office of the NYEP to register under any of the modules they are interested in. He said the NYEP is designed to provide employment opportunities for the youth in all sectors of the economy, adding that, the NYEP had introduced prison assistants' module in the region and 30 youth had been recruited so far. He added that 200 youth had been recruited to be trained in mobile phone repairs in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis and it would be replicated in other districts latter. "About 3000 dressmakers passed out just two weeks ago and each person received one sewing machine each and the NYEP will support them with kiosk but they have to make part payment", Mr Nelson said. He said the NYEP had streamlined the entry requirement for recruitment into the programme so that, recruits could be absolved into the various state and private institutions after exiting from the programme after two years. "At the moment, recruits into the Community protection unit of the NYEP are supposed to have senior high school certificates so that he or she could be recruited into the security agencies after exiting from the programme," he said.

The Regional Coordinator advised the youth, in particular, to acquire the necessary academic qualifications that would enable them to be recruited into the programme, instead of banking their hopes on being foot soldiers of a particular political party. 31 May 11