Executive Director of civil society organisation, Institute for Liberty and Policy Innovation (ILAPI), Peter Bismarck Kwofie has stated that the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) programme is a vote-buying initiative.
According to him, the NABCO initiative was a compensation process to the youth who helped the Nana Akufo-Addo led administration to secure power in the 2016 elections.
Speaking on TV3's New Day, the ILAPI Director alleged that the NABCO recruitment was discriminatory and trainees were selected based on party affiliations.
"There is huge discrimination at the district level; so those who applied and if you are not fortunate and you expose yourself of being associated with a political party, you will not get it. I know a coordinator and when they identified him as an opposition person, he was relieved from his position," he said.
Mr Peter Bismarck Kwofie has also dismissed assertions that some NABCO trainees have been employed permanently by the government. He mentioned that the people who have been employed are those who by their own means searched for their own jobs without the help from the government.
He indicated that most public sector jobs are being sold for millions of cedis.
“You know jobs are being sold in the country. Public sector jobs are sold everywhere. As much as 10,000 cedis, 15,000 and 20,000 Ghana cedis are on. I was even carrying out a one-man demonstration that people are collecting 20,000. if you can afford that, you’re okay. You get a job in the province. It does not matter the qualification or job experience. If you can pay the money, you get the job. Public sector jobs are for sale. These things are open secrets, they are there," he said.
Mr Kwofie said the NABCO initiative was not a sustainable means for permanent employment.
He also said "the next NABCO recruitment of trainees is to break the eight" which is a campaign message of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for the 2024 elections.
On October 29, 2021, a letter issued by the management of the Ghana Standards Authority and signed by Douglas Nii Teiko Annan directed that all recruits should proceed on a two-week compulsory leave.
The leave was expected to begin Monday, November 1, 2021, to November 15, 2021.
According to the management, the mandatory leave was to enable NABCO secretariat to plan and strategise on retaining trainees for the services of the Authority.
In 2018, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo launched the NABCO initiative for employing some 100,000 jobless graduates.
The programme operates seven modules designed to meet the pressing needs of the nation while providing jobs for the teeming youth who have received tertiary education but are struggling to find jobs.
The beneficiaries were engaged for three years and earned a monthly stipend of GH¢700 each.
The modules are Feed Ghana, Educate Ghana, Revenue Ghana, Heal Ghana, Enterprise Ghana, Digitise Ghana and Governance Ghana.