Dr. John Ampontuah Kumah, a Deputy Minister of Finance, has entrusted government institutions and local assemblies with rallying the young for the YouStart program.
The Deputy Minister, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ejisu, stated that the recent Population and Housing Census revealed that Ghana's young population was rapidly increasing, and that the government, through YouStart, was attempting to directly influence the lives of Ghanaian youth.
Dr Kumah made the statement yesterday in Tamale during a stakeholders' meeting with over 300 government officials, regional ministers, and metropolitan, municipal, and district chief executives (MMDCEs).
It was part of a statewide stakeholder consultation on the YouStart program, a government youth entrepreneurship promotion initiative to be supported using ETL revenues (E-Levy).
Government officials, regional ministers, and MMDCEs from the Upper West, Upper East, North East, Bono East, and Northern regions attended the event.
A week before, a similar sensitization event was organized in Accra for the same group of people from the Greater Accra, Central, and Western regions.
Start Making a Case for You
"Out of our 31 million people, around 11 million are young people aged 15 to 35, and we need to invest in them more than we have in the past," Dr Kumah added. He stated that the government may raise around GH1 billion through the E-Levy and invest it in the youth's job creation potential this year.
Other promises from our development partners and selected institutions backed up the YouStart investment, he said.
"As a result, every government entity has a duty to unite the young across the country for the YouStart initiative," he stated.
He emphasized that the initiative was for any Ghanaian kid with a business concept who need training and funds to put it into action.
"I want to issue a challenge to every innovative Ghanaian youngster to seize the YouStart and make it their own," the Ejisu MP remarked.
Other people's personalities
The Minister of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development and MP for Okere, Dan Kwaku Botwe; a Deputy Minister of Local Government and MP for Techiman South, Martin Agyei-Mensah Korsah; and the Chief Executive Officers of the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme and the Ghana Enterprises Agencies, Kofi Ofosu Nkansah and Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, respectively, were all present at the meeting.
Explained by YouStart
YouStart aims to help young entrepreneurs acquire access to financing, training, and technical skills so that they may start, grow, and expand their firms.
The project intends to assist young people and students aged 18 to 35 who have outstanding business ideas and viable firms in nurturing, growing, and expanding their businesses, as well as creating jobs in the community.
The government seeks to foster an entrepreneurial country through the YouStart program by offering some of the essential enablers that make entrepreneurship successful.
Training and capacity-building, market access, technology and procurement possibilities, business development support services, access to funding (up to GH500,000), and compliance and quality assurance help are among of the services available.
The government intends to use the YouStart to create more jobs for the economy and support the expansion and growth of Ghanaian businesses within the next three years, according to the Ministry of Finance. Given the high rate of youth unemployment in the country, the government intends to use the YouStart to create more jobs for the economy and support the expansion and growth of Ghanaian businesses within the next three years, according to the Ministry of Finance.