Officials of the National Youth Employment Program (NYEP) have admitted some of its forms are being sold in some districts and sub-metros in the Ashanti region, and have therefore instituted a seven-member committee to investigate the areas where the alleged malpractices are taking place.
The forms, investigations have revealed, are being sold between GH¢100 and GH¢170 depending on the type of module an applicant is expecting to be hooked onto.
Interestingly, they are distributed at no cost to all prospective applicants who are able to show proof of their membership of the ruling National Democratic Congress-NDC party.
The National Deputy Coordinator of the NYEP, Alhaji Tabsoba, who admitted the sale of the forms on in a radio interview in Kumasi, disclosed that members of the committee have been dispatched to the region to liaise with the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI) to fish out the culprits.
There were reports in sections of the media early this week that officials of the various sub-metropolitan councils of the KMA charged with the responsibility of registering applicants for the NYEP had turned their offices into gold mines.
It was reported that instead of distributing the NYEP forms free of charge to prospective applicants, officials at these offices were rather selling the forms to them.
In an interview on Kumasi based Hello FM, a certain Bentil Idun, a.k.a Paa Kwesi, who is an official of the Kwadaso sub-metro council admitted that indeed the forms were being sold.
He explained that applicants who are unable to produce NDC membership cards were being asked to buy the forms between GH¢100 and GH¢170.
He pointed out that the proceeds from the sale of the forms were being used to ‘grease’ the palms of the coordinators so that the application of non-NDC members could be considered.
According to him, they had been made aware that NYEP scheme is purposely made for NDC to ensure that members of the ruling party get employment.
Because of this order, he noted, NDC chairmen and other big wigs storm the offices with their list for the officials to register them for the scheme.
Claiming that the development was nothing new and that NPP did a similar thing when it was in power, Paa Kwesi disclosed that the situation is not different in all other offices of the NYEP.
The NYEP is one of the pro-poor social interventions introduced by the ex-president Kufuor administration to reduce the burdens of the teeming youth unemployment in the country.
The unprecedented social intervention, which included modules like community health assistants and community police, otherwise known as zoom police, had been of great relief to the whole nation as the unemployment rate was drastically reduced.
FROM JAMES APPIAKORANG JNR., KUMASI
