The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) graduated 10,000 young people who have undergone employable skills training in the various modules of the Agency, nationwide.

The beneficiaries went through six months of training in 10 modules, including auto-mechanics, beauty care, carpentry and masonry, hairdressing, plumbing and other skills and would be provided with working tools to set up their businesses.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony held at Techiman in the Bono East Region, Vice President Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia, also the Election 2024 Flagbearer for the New Patriotic Party re-affirmed his promise to train more than a million youth in digitization.

As a driving force of holistic national development, the Vice President said it was imperative to empower the youth to live responsible lives, saying creating jobs for the youth through skills acquisition would ultimately solve the unemployment situation in the country.

Alhaji Dr Bawumia said his government would make huge investments and provide the required resources for the YEA to deliver its mandate of creating job opportunities for young people.

He said a total of 1,400 people had benefited from the government’s flagship Free Senior High School (FSHS) programme since its inception, saying the government had also invested about GHC6 billion on Technical and vocational Education Training (TVET) in the past seven years.

Alhaji Dr Bawumia said the government had empowered head porters (Kayayie) with similar training to enhance their socio-economic livelihoods.

Mr Kofi Baah Agyapong, the Chief Executive Officer of the YEA, said investing in the youth served as a catalyst for economic development since they formed a chunk of the nation’s human resource base.

He said the Agency would soon launch the ‘GHartisan App’ that would provide opportunities for people to gain direct access to the services of the graduates.

“What you have to do is to just open the app and request for the services and you would be attended to”, Mr Agyapong stated.

He said the beneficiaries had been well-trained in their various modules and called on the government to consider engaging them in the construction of the Agenda 111 hospitals.

Mr Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, said the YEA had so far engaged about 700,000 employees, saying the government had also absorbed 2.3 million people in the formal sector.