Adukrom-Akuapem (E/R), Oct. 28, GNA - Youth groups in the Akuapem North District have appealed to the National Youth Council (NYC) to release a Youth Fund that was promised them last two years to enable them invest in small scale businesses to minimize the high unemployment rate in the area.

According to the spokesman of the groups, Mr Maxwell Aboah, they were told that government had made available large sums of money for disbursement to youth groups for job creation in the district. He said to that effect, the youth groups were asked to write viable business plans detailing how the groups would utilize the said funds before they could access the money.

The spokesman said 13 youth groups in the district complied with the requirement, followed by an inspection visit by officials from the Youth Council to the groups' proposed projects sites. Mr Amoah said each group was charged 500,000 cedis for the business plan and that some of them had to take a loan to pay for the plans. He said every group was promised a loan of 10 million cedis. However, several appeals to the Youth Council so far yielded no results, he said and appealed to the Ministry of Youth and Manpower Development to look into the matter to ensure that the funds were released to facilitate their business plans. The District Youth Co-ordinator, Mr George Ankoh, confirmed the story.