Thursday, 12th March, 2026
Hon Abdul Kabiru Tiah Mahama
Walewale
Mr Speaker, I want to thank Leadership and your good self for this honour and to thank my Colleagues, more especially Hon Eric Edem Agbana and Hon Emmanuel Tobbin, for yielding and ceding to me to make this Statement.
Mr Speaker, I rise to make this Statement on the decline of youth financing from the District Assemblies Common Fund to the National Youth Authority (NYA) and the Youth Employment Agency (YEA). The development of youth is the foundation of every nation that aims to strengthen its overall progress. This is both recognised in the National Youth Policy (2022- 2032) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Volunteer National Report (VNR) of 2035 specifically emphasised SDG target 8.5, thus achieving full and productive employment and decent work for all, including young people and persons with disabilities and SDG target 8.6, substantially reducing the proportion of youth not in employment, education, and or training. However, these targets are being undermined by inadequate and inconsistent financing for youth programmes.
Mr Speaker, the youth continue to face significant barriers such as limited entrepreneurial support, funding, vocational and technical skills training, leaving them either unemployed or in vulnerable employment. For example, according to the 2022-2023 Annual Household Income Expenditure Survey, seven in every 10 persons, that is about 1.3 million unemployed persons in the third quarter of 2023, were aged 15 to 35. Of those who were even said to be employed, estimated to be around 3.1 million youth, were said to be in vulnerable employment. The survey also revealed that 1.2 million youth are excluded from the use of ICT devices and another 2.3 million, which is about 19.7 per cent, did not use the internet.
Mr Speaker, in response to the need for a more structured and sustainable framework, this House passed the Youth Employment Agency Act, 2015 (Act 887), and the National Youth Authority Act, 2016 (Act 939). The goal of these Acts was to empower these institutions to oversee the development, coordination, supervision and facilitation of youth employment. Importantly, both Acts made explicit provision to ensure sustainable financing of these agencies. Specifically, Section 17 (b) of Act 939 and Section 23 (c) of Act 887 mandates that 5 per cent of the District Assemblies Common Fund be allocated to the National Youth Authority and 10 per cent to the YEA annually, subject to the formula approved by Parliament under Article 252 of the Constitution.
Mr Speaker, this was to generate predictable and adequate funding to enable these institutions to perform their mandate effectively. The current Government has outlined a roadmap to operationalise its youth development and employment strategy, as outlined in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Manifesto for 2024, primarily through the establishment of its new Ministry of Youth Development and Empowerment. This is also to build on key interventions in previous governments through youth entrepreneurship and skill development, with the National Apprenticeship Programme (NAP) and the Adwumawura Initiative. These youthbased initiatives are driven by institutions such as the NYA and the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme, (NEIP).
According to the NYA, an amount of GH₵ 400 million has been received through the District Assemblies Common Fund since 2017. Of this amount, 79 per cent has been spent on youth-related infrastructure development across the country, including youth resource centres, youth leadership skills training institutes, astro-turf facilities, regional and district directorates and national office complexes.
Mr Speaker, about 17 per cent has been spent on programmes and operations, while the remaining 4 per cent was spent on goods and services and general administration over the past nine years. Demonstrably, the NYA has effectively utilised the resources to empower the youth and create an enabling environment for effective and meaningful youth engagement in the country. Regrettably, the trend in recent years paints a disturbing picture.
It is interesting to note that between 2017 and 2019, compliance with the statutory funding requirement was largely achieved. However, from 2020, there has been a consistent decline. Available data indicates that between 2020 and 2024, the average annual release from the District Assemblies Common Fund to the NYA stood at only 2.8 per cent while the YEA received about 5.8 per cent, which is far below their statutory allocation of 5 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively. Even more concerning is that in the first quarter of 2025, both agencies have received just 0.6 per cent of their expected allocation.
Mr Speaker, reports from the Youth Empowerment for Life in Ghana (YEFLGhana), a youth-focused civil organisation based in the northern region, through its “Follow the Money” campaign between 2017 and 2025 support this worrying revelation of inconsistency in the District Assemblies Common Fund’s disbursement to the NYA and the YEA. This downward trajectory is not merely a statistical issue, it has real implications for the lives of the millions of young Ghanaians who depend on this institution for training, employment and empowerment opportunities. The decline undermines the very essence of our collective vision for inclusive and sustainable development. It also weakens the institutional capacity of NYA and YEA to deliver on their respective mandates.
Mr Speaker, the youth of Ghana remain our most valuable national asset. If properly supported, we can become the engine of innovation, productivity and leadership that will prepare Ghana toward middle-income prosperity and beyond. However, to unlock this potential, the Government must prioritise and protect youth financing, especially through consistent and timely disbursement of national district assembly common fund allocations as prescribed by law.
Mr Speaker, this Government came to office with a vision of resetting the nation and restoring economic stability. In that spirit, I appeal earnestly to the Minister for Finance and the District Assemblies Common Fund Secretariat to take immediate steps to ensure statutory funds due to the National Youth Authority (NYA) and the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) are released fully and promptly. Delays and shortfalls in the releases only serve to erode public confidence in our youth policies and derail the progress we collectively seek.
Mr Speaker, given this worrying decline and non-compliance of this statutory allocation in the past years, I will urge the responsible institution, that is the District Assemblies Common Fund, the YEA, the NYA, the Minister for Youth Development and Employment, to engage with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Youth and Sports to take a second look at the decline in compliance issue and to immediately take steps to find a redress to it. Such engagement should aim to build the cause of non-compliance and propose remedial measures, including ensuring strict adherence to the 2026 National Budget. Unfortunately, this has elapsed, but going into the future in 2026—
In conclusion, I firmly believe that any investment that improves the wellbeing and productivity of our youth is an investment in the future. It is therefore imperative that we restore full compliance with the provisions of Act 887 and Act 939 to safeguard the sustainability of our youth development architecture.
Mr Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity.
Hon Francis-Xavier Kojo Sosu
Madina
Mr Speaker, I want to thank the Maker of the Statement for such a well-researched Statement, particularly the one bordering on the young people of our country.
Mr Speaker, the Statement is so critical because we know of the issues of youth unemployment, and we know the core mandate of the YEA and the NYA. Indeed, if we can change our narrative as a people, we must begin to prepare young people to become entrepreneurs and it is the YEA and the NYA that have the mandate or the core mandate to prepare our young people to become entrepreneurial.
Mr Speaker, one of the reasons there is so much brouhaha in town today is the fact that we have a number of young people who are looking for government jobs that are not available. The reality is that Adam Smith’s theory of scarcity still prevails. The resources available to us as a nation cannot satisfy all the needs we have as a people. There is no way the spaces available can support the total number of young people looking for jobs, and the only way as a people we can begin to make progress is when we prepare these young people to invest in themselves, technical, vocational and some form of entrepreneurship and that is the core mandate of the YEA, and that is why I support the Maker of the Statement that we must, as part of the Reset Agenda, reset the funding to these agencies.
I can assure the Maker of the Statement that His Excellency John Dramani Mahama is a man of integrity and definitely will take this call in good faith, and we can see some serious funding to the YEA so that it can carry out its core mandate to secure the future of our young people in Ghana.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to support the Statement.
Hon Nana Asafo-Adjei Ayeh
Bosome Freho
Mr Speaker, I would like to also commend my good Brother and Colleague from Walewale, Hon Dr Kabiru Mahama.
Mr Speaker, this is an important Statement, and for me, the figures and the details he has put across are mindboggling. The number of unemployed youth we have, seven out of ten persons we meet are unemployed, and the effort that successive governments have tried to make, particularly in financing or finding a lasting solution to this youth unemployment problem.
Mr Speaker, my point or major focus of the contribution will be about the efforts or activities of successive governments that largely have an intention of creating jobs, but end up not creating the jobs we are looking for.
Mr Speaker, not quite long ago, the current President, who was President from 2012 to 2016, came out with a lot of initiatives with the intention of creating jobs for the youth. He came out with youth in bead making, youth in bicycle riding, youth in film making and youth in pothole patching. These are programmes that we commit a lot of money into and at the end of the day end up in sham, including Muslims in piggery and all that. This was the result of how Ghanaians ended up in lawsuits about corruption.
Mr Speaker, so my point is clear. Today, my good Brother is talking about YEA. In the Message on the State of the Nation, President John Dramani Mahama mentioned that 89,000 youth have been engaged in various modules.
Mr Speaker, as at the time he was giving the Message on the State of the Nation, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the YEA had not even been in office. In 2016, when the President again came here to make a Statement before us, he again mentioned that he had instructed that the YEA programme be reviewed to avoid duplication.
Mr Speaker, my point is clear that we cannot overly as a country to implement programmes, activities, and initiatives that will end up coming back to the same cycle without creating lasting and permanent jobs for our youth. Mr Speaker, it is as if our youth are beginning to be the point at which we tell them anything, and then they fall for us, for us to win elections.
Not long ago, the President of this country went to Winneba, and then behind him was a big wall clock. Telling everybody that he is going to create a one-three-three job, that, for example, Ama will go to work in the morning and close in the afternoon. Kofi will go in the afternoon, for an eight-hour shift, and close. Then, Kwame takes over and comes the next day, one-three-three, to curb the issue of unemployment in this country. Now we are here, 2025 is gone.
In 2026, the best they have done about the one-three-three initiative is to create an Authority, which in itself closes at 4:00 p.m. Mr Speaker, this is how we have, over the years, used our youth as a chaskele ball. We play with them, we toy with their emotions, we ride on them, we gain popularity, win elections and do not do anything about them.
Mr Speaker, the financing of the youth must be something that we should be interested in. Mr Speaker, it is not about rhetoric. It should be about commitment to ensuring that the teeming members of our society who are young and unemployed must be given some work and a job to do. Mr Speaker, we now have H. E. John Mahama again as a president.
I am only cautioning, that the youth in pot-hole patching, the youth in beads making, the youth in bicycle riding, the Muslims in piggery should not be repeated. We are seeing some clear signs with the Adwumawura Programme. Mr Speaker, we are only hearing that 2,000 of them have been trained. Even them, they have not been able to equip them or tool them to go and work. Mr Speaker, the conclusion—
Hon Samuel Awuku
Akuapim North
Mr Speaker, let me commend the maker of the Statement for bringing such an important matter to the attention of the House.
Mr Speaker, I think what is happening in the country is pretending to be creating jobs for the young people, when in actual sense, it is like an Instagram kind of situation where we are made to believe something is being done but not being done. Again, if we look at the allocation from the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) to that of the National Youth Authority (NYA) and that of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), it is worrying. Already, they are struggling to release the 5 per cent and the 10 per cent. Now, we have these institutions also struggling to even cope with the burden that they come face-to-face with all the time.
Mr Speaker, even the structural arrangement of even the YEA is problematic. A situation where we have young people being recruited and employed for two years. After two years, they are made to exit the programme and we recruit another young group of people to be employed for two years. So, clearly, it is a recycle of unemployment situation that we have in our country.
Much scarier, Mr Speaker, is the recent Ghana Statistical Service report where in Greater Accra alone, one out of two young people that you meet remain unemployed. So, Mr Speaker, that is very scary. If in the midst of all this, we have Government not having a coordinated strategy to employ young people, it gives us cause to worry. Again, let me buttress the point of my Colleague that this “settings” arrangement of one-three-three people working around the 24-hour clock, it is clear that it is not going to work. For a year now, what they have established is a secretariat. The Secretariat themselves are telling us they aim to recruit people. At a point in time, I do not know why my senior Vandal Colleague was upset when my Colleague mentioned the Muslims in piggery. Here in this Chamber, the President of the Republic said he was showcasing people that they had employed and said Amina had been given some support to go into piggery. Amina was a practising and is still a practising Muslim. So, when they say Muslims in piggery, they created it.
Mr Speaker, subsequent to that, we also have a situation where Mr President comes to us in this Chamber and tells us that as part of the Big Push and in the same Budget Statement of the President of the Republic, they are telling us they are going to create about 800,000 jobs through the Big Push. A greater percentage of these 800,000 jobs is “byday” work. People going to carry water, fetch water, carry concrete and all. After six or seven months, they are back to square one. That is not the kind of jobs that President Mahama and the NDC promised us when they were campaigning in 2024. We believe that the lip service period is over. The honeymoon now, it is clear, is over. Eyes clear. Let us get to the realities on the ground. We are still looking forward to—
Recently, Mr Speaker, my very good Friend and Brother, Felix Ofosu Kwakye said last year they were going to even establish 600 CHPS compounds. That could have employed many young people. A year down the line, you ask him and he tells you it is not his policy, it is that of Government policy. Mr Speaker, the situation we have is a very serious matter and we expect our Colleagues on the other Side to attach seriousness to the issues of unemployment. Now the issue of security recruitment. Over 500,000 young people were convinced, let me put it that way, that they were going to get jobs, paid GH₵200—And they knew that they were going to only recruit 5,000 people. A hundred million cedis, nicely accrued, I will not say pocketed, but to the disadvantage of the young people. We want to see much more seriousness from our Colleagues. Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity.
Hon Richard Acheampong
Bia East
Mr Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to comment on the Statement made by my good Friend, Hon Kabiru.
Mr Speaker, the maker of the Statement is a Muslim, yet he sat down quietly for another Asafo-Adjei Ayeh to tell all of us that there was a programme called Muslim in piggery, and he was laughing. Mr Speaker, our Brothers and Sisters are in their fasting season, Ramadan. He is here making mockery of them. We never had any programme called Muslim in piggery, so Mr Speaker, that statement should be expunged from the records. Unless he can prove to us that we implemented a programme called Muslim in piggery. If somebody mentions Amina, does it mean that every Amina is a Muslim? How can he conclude that? I was in this House when that Statement was made. So if you mention Amina or Siaka, it does not mean that person is a Muslim.
Mr Speaker, the Statement is revealing certain things to us. I thank Hon Kabiru for telling us this story. He used to work at the office of the former Vice President. He telling us that between 2020 and 2024, instead of DACF ceding 5 per cent to NYA, they only gave them 2.8 per cent under their watch. Instead of giving YEA 10 per cent, they gave them 5.8 per cent. Meanwhile, between 2017 and 2019, they received GH₵400 million. What did they use that money for?
He is reporting to us that they used 17 per cent for programmes and operations, 4 per cent for goods and services and administration expenditures, and 79 per cent spent on youth-related infrastructure development. They refused to report this to us then. Today, they are telling us that there was a wastage. The money meant for youth development was used for other purposes. We thank you for telling us what you did with the GH₵400 million.
That is why we put in Adwumawura programme, Nkokↄ Nketenkete programme, youth apprenticeship programme. The Statement is telling us that about 1.2 million youth are excluded from the use of ICT. So, the one Million Coders Programme is going to fix that challenge. He is also telling us that 2.3 million people did not even use internet at all. We need to develop the youth because they are the future of this nation. So, it is good he brought out all this information, though he failed to address it during their regime. But governance is a continuum. This Government is taking steps to make sure that we put the youth at a proper place so that they can get meaningful work to do. We are just 14 months in office. So, what they could not fix, this administration is going to fix so that the youth will have hope.
When we are not there, they are going to take over from us. So, we thank him very much for bringing up this issue because the people having this challenge are between 15 and 35 years. We need to deal with it. The Government is not complaining. The Government is taking steps to fix what they could not fix. So Mr Speaker, we thank him for bringing up the problem that they created. But the youth are the youth of this nation. We will make sure the right thing is done so that the youth will get a better future to help us develop this nation.
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