Ghana’s unemployment crisis continues to challenge successive governments, with little long-term progress, according to Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah, MP for Manhyia South.

Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah, MP for Manhyia South and Vice Chairman of Parliament’s Subsidiary Legislative Committee, told the AM Show that political promises often raise hopes without delivering solutions.

“Politicians, we are taking advantage of the situation without a solution to it. When you come, you campaign to win political power with a hope of creating employment for the teeming youth,” he said.

The MP traced the issue back to the end of John Mahama’s first term, noting that by 2017 youth unemployment had become so severe that affected graduates formed their own association to highlight their plight.

When the New Patriotic Party (NPP) took office under President Nana Akufo-Addo, it launched the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO), which attracted over 800,000 enrollees.

However, the programme was later suspended following Ghana’s post-COVID economic pressures and an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programme.

Now back in office after winning the December 2024 elections, President Mahama acknowledged in his State of the Nation Address that approximately two million Ghanaians remain unemployed.

The recent security service recruitment exercise was meant to partly address this challenge.

Interior Minister Muntaka Mohammed-Mubarak assured the public that the process would be merit-based, with zero tolerance for corruption.

He also visited screening centres to personally verify that the exercise was orderly and seamless.

The Minority in Parliament noted that the recruitment generated over GHS 111 million in application fees, yet only 5,000 of more than 500,000 applicants will be recruited. Many were disqualified due to technical issues during the online aptitude test.

The Interior Minister defended the approach, noting that government auxiliary initiatives, such as community police and fire assistant programmes, have already absorbed 25,000 youth. He added that data of qualified but unrecruited applicants would be retained for a possible 2026 exercise, should fiscal conditions improve.