The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has revealed that the Nation Builder’s Corps (NaBCo) programme will officially end in September 2022.

According to him, the programme, which run for about four years, engaged 100,000 young graduates and has prepared thousands of them for the world of work.

Speaking in Parliament during the presentation of the Mid-year Budget on Monday, Mr. Ofori-Atta said that “our iconic National Builder’s Corps (NaBCo) programme, which was initially to run for three years and extended for an additional year, will be completed by 1st September, 2022. So far we have invested approximately GH¢2.2 billion.”

Government first introduced NABCo in 2018 as part of their vision to provide jobs for unemployed graduates in the country.

About 100,000 graduates were engaged in seven sectors of the economy including; education, health, local government, agriculture, entrepreneurship, revenue and digitization.

The programme was introduced to provide opportunities for graduates to be equipped with employable skills in different sectors of the economy that would enable the personnel acquire relevant skills and knowledge to compete favourably in the job market.

The programme, during the period that it was executed, encountered challenges. Early this year, some of the trainees threatened to demonstrate over unpaid allowances.

Meanwhile, the Finance Minister has urged NABCo trainees exiting the programme to take advantage of the government’s new initiative, YouStart and other existing programmes.

He explained that this is to aid the government’s vision to have an entrepreneurial nation.

“The YouStart programme will be a fundamental intervention to advancing an entrepreneurial nation to create jobs. Government’s policy is to support dynamic young entrepreneurs access training and funds to build their businesses and become a significant pool of job providers for their fellow young people.”