Founding President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, has criticised Ghanaian politicians for contributing to the country’s youth unemployment crisis, arguing that poor implementation of policies has undermined job creation.

Speaking on Super Morning Show on Joy FM on Thursday, 12 March, Mr Cudjoe said politicians often present appealing promises and launch ambitious initiatives but fail to follow through, rendering such policies ineffective.

Citing the One District One Factory programme introduced by the former New Patriotic Party government, he said the policy could have significantly reduced youth unemployment if it had been properly implemented.

According to him, the industrial sector, which should ordinarily generate large-scale employment, is underperforming largely because of political decisions.

“The part of the economy that should create the jobs, unfortunately, is not doing that much, only because you could realise that the politicians are the problem,” he argued.

“They promise heaven, they promise a very welcoming environment, investment-wise, and at the same time they turn around to invest in other programmes that take away money from the very sector that should be supported,” he added.

Mr Cudjoe clarified that he was not opposed to the One District One Factory initiative itself, but rather how it was implemented.

“I am not saying the One District One Factory was necessarily bad. The idea was awesome, but they did not even evaluate the production capability of every district,” he said.

The discussion follows the announcement by the Ministry of the Interior (Ghana) that about 500,000 applicants have applied for ongoing recruitment into the country’s security services, with only 5,000 positions available, highlighting the scale of the unemployment challenge in Ghana.

Read also: Only 5,000 positions available for 105,000 qualified security service applicants – Interior Minister