LESDEP Making Inroads

Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo and his deputy Elvis Afriyie Ankrah inspecting some of the equipment on display

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday December 1, 2011.
About 1,000 people, mostly youth yesterday graduated under the Local Enterprise and Skill Development Program (LESDEP), a social intervention programme introduced by the government to make people employable.

The initiative, which was launched in April, 2011 by President John Evans Atta Mills, is expected to target about 20,000 youth with employable skills by the end of the year.

Similar graduations coupled with business set-ups have been planned for all beneficiaries in the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).

LESDEP is a private initiative registered under the auspices of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development with the MMDAs as implementing agencies.

Under the programme interested beneficiaries receive training in areas such as mobile phone repairs, hair dressing, fashion designing, barbering beauty care, cargo transport services, catering and a host of other employable skills.

At the graduation ceremony at the LESDEP center at Abelemkpe in Accra yesterday for beneficiaries in the Metropolis, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development said LESDEP is impacting positively on the lives of the youth.

He said the government earmarked GHC 84 million in the 2012 budget to ensure that LESDEP becomes sustainable.

“We have demonstrated that we can make the youth active partners of development by helping them to acquire employable skills,” he said.

The Minister announced that the government has decided to retain for another year national service personnel who excel at the various MMDAs, adding “the government is committed to giving equal opportunity to the people to explore their talents.”

Clement Kofi Humado, Minister of Youth and Sports underscored the need for the government to do more to get majority of the youth into employable ventures.

He said the government, realizing the need to create employment avenues, has moved away from the internship module under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) introduced by the previous government towards institutionalizing programmes that would make the youth to become self-sustaining without necessarily over burdening the government’s wage bill.

“Over the years we have been accumulating youth unemployment. Our energies particularly those of the youth must not be allowed to go waste.”

The Chief Director of the 6Ministry of Finance who represented the sector minister, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, said the LESDEP initiative is on course to reduce the unemployment burden of the country.

Gariba Adaimu, National Coordinator of LESDEP, said the initiative is having “direct and indirect positive impact” on people, particularly the youth, adding “it is going to enhance the people’s socio-economic status.”