Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has underscored the need for government to tackle unemployment saying, failure to do so has a dangerous repercussion on the country.

Speaking at the 2017 Thanksgiving Service of the Jospong Group of Companies, Friday, Kufuor emphasized that the lack of employment compels the youth to explore other means possible in order to make ends meet.

“We have so many young people all over the place highly educated without jobs and they say that the devil finds job for the idle hands. When there are young educated people and you do not give them jobs to do, then what you are doing to them is to lead them to the devil to use. And that is a curse to the nation,” he said.

“Governments should be there to solve problems. This is why the current government is themed ‘Creating jobs through agriculture’. I do not know anywhere on earth where poverty has been used to overcome poverty. You need to create the wealth to be able to help the not-so-privileged. You need to be able to have the wealth for equality of opportunity, give education to the people,” he added.

The former president while refuting claims that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is a party which believes in the capitalist ideology, said his reign saw more social intervention programs because the party believes in employing practical steps to resolve challenges.

“In truth, we did what we did as a government not so much for capitalism but for overcoming poverty, disease, ignorance and insanitary conditions in our country. Just this morning, an FM station called and asked me, ‘your party is perceived as a capitalist party but during your tenure of office, we saw that you did so many social interventions for the not-so-privileged’. I had to explain to him that the party I led, which is in power today, is not a capitalist party. We do not subscribe to ideologies. Ours is open-mindedness, pragmatism,” he explained.

The Jospong Group held the Thanksgiving Service to appreciate the goodness of the Lord towards the entities under the group in 2017.”