President Akufo-Addo says the two major expectations of Ghanaians as far as his government is concerned is the elimination of corruption and the creation of jobs, particularly for the youth between the ages of 15 and 24 years.
Speaking at a ceremony held at the Kempinski Hotel to launch a book entitled “Making Africa Work”, a handbook for Economic success, the President said the whole of Africa is grubbing with youth unemployment and widespread corruption.
This he describes as “the challenge of the century for African countries”.
“The issue of Youth unemployment is not only an economic issue but it has become a security issue as we have seen from the Arab spring where youth unemployment and discontent provided the spark for the uprising in Tunisia. In Ghana, about 60% of the unemployment are in the 15 to 24 years age group” the President noted.
Job creation
The President assured that his government has initiated major policies that are aimed at ensuring that jobs are created for the people of Ghana.
“Sustained job creation is largely a private sector phenomenon. It is for this reason, that we have set out to build the most business friendly economy in Africa. We are therefore moving quickly to create an environment that would unleash the innovative and entrepreneurial instincts of the Ghanaian people to drive rapid growth and Job creation” the President said.
Corruption
On the issue of Corruption, the President indicated that his government has begun a total audit of the Ghanaian Public sector to ascertain the true nature of the state of Corruption and to develop a realistic formula to deal with the canker.
” Corruption undermines the ability of government to create jobs as much as needed resources are stolen. Therefore a major opportunity for job creation is by dealing with corruption. Already, government has started a comprehensive audit of various institutions. The findings to date reveal the depth of the rot that has almost become the character of the way we treat public resources and the way we perform our public duties and deliver public services,” the President observed.
He added that he is hopeful that the new Special Prosecutor bill that is before Parliament will be passed in order to have a strong institution that will deal with the present and future corrupt public officials.
The Book ” Making Africa Work”
The book, ” Making Africa Work is co authored by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Greg Mills, a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Chatham House, Jeffrey Herbst, President and CEO of the Newseum in Washington DC and Dickie Davis, special adviser at the Brenthurst Foundation and managing director of Nant Enterprise Limited. In a praise for the Book, former finance minister of Zimbabwe, Tendai Biti, said ” this book provides essential hardware for every policy maker”.
