President-elect John Dramani Mahama has outlined his commitment to focusing on sustainable job creation strategies, firmly rejecting what he termed "artificial initiatives" such as the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO), which he believes fail to tackle the country's long-term unemployment challenges.

In an interview with VOA on Saturday, December 14, Mr Mahama criticized the outgoing New Patriotic Party (NPP) government’s NABCO programme, which was launched in 2018 to address graduate unemployment.

He described it as ineffective and unsustainable, pointing out that young people were promised permanent jobs after three years of temporary employment and allowances, only to be left without any lasting job opportunities.

“We are not interested in the artificial job creation measures that have been implemented in the past, like NABCO, where young people were placed in temporary roles for three years, given allowances, and promised permanent employment, only to be abandoned at the end of the process,” Mr Mahama stated.

He further affirmed his administration's intention to leverage the existing Youth Employment Agency (YEA) to provide real job training and orientation opportunities.

“We are not going to repeat those artificial job creation measures. We already have the Youth Employment Agency, which is creating opportunities for job training and orientation,” Mahama said, emphasizing that his focus would be on creating genuine pathways to employment rather than relying on temporary solutions.

Mr Mahama also addressed the limitations of the public sector as the primary source of employment, noting that the government sector employs fewer than a million people in a country of 33 million.

He asserted that the public sector could not absorb the large numbers of young people entering the job market.