A Senior Lecturer with the University of Ghana’s Economics Department has advised government to be strategic in its job creation to solve the country's unemployment situation.

Dr Priscilla Twumasi-Baffuor, in her contribution on JoyNews’ Newsfile Saturday, stated that multiple agencies are overseeing the issue; however, the rate of unemployment keeps increasing.

According to the Economist, it will be much prudent should government harmonise its effort to tackle the unemployment issue, which many have described as a ‘ticking bomb’.

“In the employment generation area, one thing that it is lacking is for us to harmonise all the activities that are going on in there because you tend to find that a lot of agencies are doing a number of things.

“We need to have a harmonious programme that is looking at youth employment. And for every activity that government is engaged in, I think that we should be intentional about the number of jobs that are created within that activity,” she explained.

As part of efforts to revitalise the economy and create more job opportunities, government announced a strategy to create job and business opportunities for one million Ghanaian youth by 2024 through programmes including the establishment of “YouBanC”.

The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Attah, in his presentation of the 2021 Mid-Year Review of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy on Thursday, said the initiative will be part of the ¢100 billion GhanaCARES ‘Obaatanpa’ Programme.

“Our strategy to place the private sector at the heart of this endeavour is to accelerate competitive import substitution and export expansion to generate sustainable jobs for our teeming youth (under 35 years), who make up about 71% of the population.

“The unemployment situation in our country has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a situation which we will confront aggressively. Indeed, it is an issue that will be at the forefront of our national discourse,” he explained.

“The future of our young people and their livelihoods are of utmost importance to us as a nation. It requires urgent action, and the President [Akufo-Addo] has directed that we consolidate and implement new programmes and projects to address it. It is crucial to our destiny,” he added.