Election 2020 Presidential Candidate for the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG),Kofi Akpaloo, has cautioned that the joblessness among the youth and the desperation that accompanied it is a major challenge that must be resolved as it undermined the security of the country and its progress.
He said unemployment fuelled crime and could be a cause of insecurity, following a surge in violent crimes; the government was responsible for providing adequate jobs for the unemployed youth of the country and when there are no jobs, there was the tendency of increased crimes.
“As a remedy, LPG will give unemployment benefits to persons who may have lost their jobs through no fault of theirs and unemployed persons above 18 years will receive monthly stipends to grow their businesses to stimulate the economy,” Mr Akpaloo assured.
Speaking at a stakeholder engagement which sought to strengthen media relations with state and non-state actors with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Tema, he noted that unemployment was a major trigger of insecurity and had resulted in increasing spate of day and highway robberies in some parts of the country.
He asserted that most unemployed persons, especially the youth were desperate to make ends meet and as a result of hardships, go out of their way and get into criminal activities and was hopeful the LPG would create a $4 billion job fund to provide four million jobs to the citizenry especially the youth.
Mr Akpaloo indicated that one of the ways to nipping the phenomenon in the bud was proper identification system and database of citizens to track persons who perpetrated crime and commended the National Identification Authority for implementation of Ghana Card to help reduce crime.
Francis Ameyibor, Regional Manager of GNA, explained the emerging journalistic developmental challenges, especially issue of fake news and social media trends, and described as an anomaly the practice where public officials disseminated formal information through private social media portals and also dangerous development, which had contributed to the circulation of fake news.
“Gathering of newsworthy information and its subsequent dissemination to the public have changed, hence the need for media landscape to wake up to global wind of change and news packaging must also change from mediocre long sermon news to fast, accurate, objective and straightforward news,” Mr Ameyibor intimated. -GNA
