Youths urged not to migrate to seek greener pastures

Togbe Afede XIV, Agbogbomefia of the Ho Asogli Traditional Area, on Tuesday, challenged Ghanaian youths to take advantage of the business opportunities in the country instead of migrating to seek greener pastures outside. He observed that, Ghana was blessed with many business opportunities, which has attracted foreign investors and that the youth had many prospects to exploit to improve their lot. Togbe Afede made the call at the on-going 62nd Annual New Year School and Conference, organised by the Institute of Continuing and Distance Education (ICDE) of University of Ghana (UG), Legon, in Accra. He called on the youths to develop their entrepreneurial skills to enable them to harness Ghana’s economic fortunes. Mr Abuga Pele, National Co-ordinator of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), said his outfit was in discussion with the World Bank (WB) to support youth enterprises in the country. He said the WB’s 50-million dollar financial facility would fund projects in information, communication and technology (ICT), agriculture, construction and the oil and gas sector. Mr Pele expressed optimism that with the support from the WB, the management of NYEP would exceed the 300,000 youth recruitment target for 2012 to one million. Dr. Michael Agyekum Addo, Chief Executive Officer of the KAMA Group of Companies, observed that, start-up challenges facing youths in entrepreneurship, included manpower, money, marketing, machinery, and materials. He was optimistic that the youth could succeed if they applied themselves to critical thinking and innovativeness as well as a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship, which was critical for success. Dr Agyekum urged the youth not to look down on menial and manual job opportunities, adding that, those trades could be used as stepping stones for self-development.