The National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) has appealed to government to allocate 100 per cent of revenue accruing from the "Talk Time Tax" to support its operations. The 20 per cent of the tax allocated to the Programme is woefully inadequate to cater for its operations considering the large number of youth it envisages to engage, according to the NYEP. Chief Maasu Issifu, a Deputy National Coordinator in charge of Communication and Research, made the appeal when interacting with the journalists after a meeting with district coordinators and staff of the Programme in Wa. He explained that the "Talk Time Tax" was instituted mainly for the operations of the NYEP and urged government not to overlook that obligation. The meeting was to offer the National Executives first hand information on the operations of the programme in the districts with the view to modifying the operations of the Programme if necessary. Chief Issifu said it is the vision of the programme to become the reservoir of employment for the country and that required more resource allocation to enable it achieve that objective. He therefore appealed to government to expedite action to ensure that the Programme was given legal backing, which would help create the proper status for its structures and operations. He announced that the programme was collaborating with some key security agencies and other relevant government organisations and departments as well as the private sector to take on board products of the programme after they had been exited. Chief Issifu said henceforth, recruitment of students to serve on the Programme would be based strictly on standardized qualification which would make it easier for them to be engaged in other sectors of the economy after the Programme had trained them. He said the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration inherited the Programme from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and it was ready to make inputs and restructure its operations to make it more sustainable and effective. He noted that to reduce the pressure on the monthly payroll of the Programme, the NYEP would now focus on self employment modules that have the capacity to engage many youth and encourage entrepreneurship among the beneficiaries. In pursuit of this, Chief Issifu said, Youth in Agric-Business, Youth-In-Mining, Youth-In-Afforestation and Youth-In-Construction would be given the needed attention to ensure that the individual youth and the nation derived the maximum benefits from these modules. Chief Issifu announced that a separate unit headed by a physically challenged person had been created to cater for the disabled to enable them gain sustainable employment. He said under the Youth-In-Information and Communication Technology (ICT), about 30,000 youth were expected to be engaged between 2010 and 2012 while 10,000 would also be trained under the Youth-In-Cotton Industry within the same period. Some 250 youth would be trained under the Youth-In -Film and Movie Industry to produce artistes who would be provided with seed capital to become self employed. The Youth-In-Mining Industry would engage 10,000 youth who would be trained by retired professional miners to help reduce the occurrence of accidents associated with illegal mining. Chief Issifu announced that Women-In-Sheabutter Industry would engage 5,000 women which would be implemented on pilot basis starting from the Upper East Region. The Artisan Module was expected to employ 10,000 youth while the Construction and Road Repair Module would take on 20,000 youth. He said the Youth-In-Agriculture had been restructured and about 100,000 youth would be involved in its implementation irrespective of their educational background. Source: GNA