Church should partner state to address youth unemployment — John Mahama
Former President John Dramani Mahama has urged the Church to support the state to create employment opportunities for the youth.
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He bemoaned the increasing youth unemployment rate in the country, and said churches could intervene by creating job opportunities to contain the rising levels of unemployment.
Mr Mahama made the call last Wednesday during the Greater Accra East Region of the Assemblies of God’s sixth council meeting at Shai Hills in the Greater Accra Region.
The five-day conference on the theme: “Send the light for growth and expansion” was to fellowship, reflect on the past and plan for the ensuing year, as well as pray for the Church as a body and the country at large.
Mr Mahama, who was the special guest of honour, expressed concern about the grim outlook of youth unemployment in the country, stressing that this needed to be urgently resolved.
“In 2016, the unemployment rate in Ghana was 8.5 per cent. Today, one of the sad things to have happened over the last seven to eight years was that unemployment has grown from 8.5 per cent to 14.7 per cent, which is a worrying concern,” he said.
Mr Mahama, who is also the presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), said there was the need for the country to find a way of involving the Church in opening employment opportunities for young people, stressing that he would provide support to encourage churches and institutions to go into job creation through the Ghana EXIM Bank facility when given the nod to lead the country in 2025.
"The Church can get involved by investing in areas such as livestock rearing, farming, agro processing, pharmaceuticals, information technology, financial services, among others, so that we can create more opportunities for our young people to get employed," he said, emphasising that it would require a joint effort between government and the private sector to create sustainable jobs for the youth.
Ghana will rise again
Mr Mahama said although Ghana might be going through a form of economic crisis, all was not lost as the country had the capacity to come out of the current challenges.
While commending the Church for the positive and meaningful role it had played in assisting the spiritual development of Ghanaians, he urged the citizenry to also do their part to make sure that Ghana bounced back again.
He said the Church was in a position to help the state to ensure free and fair elections, and urged churches to deploy non-partisan observers to carry out parallel vote tabulation as a tool for monitoring the conduct of elections alongside what the political parties and other election observers would do to ensure credible and peaceful elections.
Mr Mahama said since credible and peaceful elections remained a major issue for churches in Ghana, it was important that the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC), the Christian Council of Ghana and other faith organisations came together to put in a system to independently tally the outcome of elections.
Church growth
The General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God, Ghana, Rev. Stephen Yenusom Wengam, said as part of the “Send the light Agenda”, every local Assemblies of God Church was mandated to plant at least one church, adding that every family, individual, department and agency within the Assemblies of God Church should also set a target of planting a church to spread the gospel and growth of the church throughout the country.
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