President John Mahama has said that ten thousand head porters, popularly known as Kayayees, will be absorbed onto the Youth Employment Programme (YEP) in his next term, if he retains the presidency.

“We’ll continue the empowerment of head porters [Kayayee] through a pilot programme where thousands of them will be sent to school,” the President said Tuesday, September 13 while highlighting the content of the National Democratic Congress' (NDC) manifesto ahead of its launch this weekend in Sunyani.

The government, he said, is currently piloting a scheme in which it is absorbing thousand of ‘Kayayees’ into the Youth Employment Programme, providing them with skills so that “they can find work and come out of head pottering.”

“And so, under the next four years we are looking to expand that from thousand to ten-thousand of them. Ten thousand of them will be registered under the youth employment and they will be given skills training so that they can go out into the world of work,” he added.

Special economic scheme

Also Mahama said that the NDC in its next term will introduce a special economic scheme to ease the economic burden of senior citizens battling abject poverty.

He said they will be regisetered under the Urban Scheme where they will be granted a bi-monthly stipend by the state in order that they will be able to survive.