The Wa Municipal Assembly has employed 689 more people under the National Youth Employment Programme. Currently, the Assembly is operating five modules of the programme. Under the Education module, 204 people have been employed as pupil teachers, 300 went into agro-business, 103 youths have been engaged as health care attendants while 56 and 26 people opted for community protection and the waste and sanitation components respectively. The Deputy Upper West Regional Minster, Mr George Hikah Benson, disclosed at Wa on Wednesday during the first ordinary meeting of the assembly. Mr Benson, who is the Acting Municipal Chief Executive for the assembly, said but for this intervention, "these young people would have been wandering in complete despair and despondency" with their attendant psychological stress on their parents. Out of a revenue target of ¢2.5 billion for last year, the assembly was able to realize only ¢1.6 billion and he attributed this to the creation of two new districts out of the mother district as a result of which it now depended solely on the Wa central market. He called for a re-appraisal of the assembly's monitoring and supervision roles with a view to identifying and correcting lapses that undermined effective revenue mobilization in the municipality. A sanitation levy and vehicles and motorcycle stickers were novelties that should be vigorously pursued and sustained in order to beef up their performance in revenue mobilization, he told the assembly members and heads of decentralized departments that were present. Mr Abdul-Rashid Pelpuo, Member of Parliament for the Wa Central, said he had so far sponsored 60 students at tertiary institutions in the country and fixed minor projects at the request of beneficiary communities. Source: GNA