YESDEC Contract Terminated �Coordinators Asked To Hand-Over Tools

Information available to The Chronicle indicates that the Ministry of Youth and Employment has disbanded the Youth Enterprises and Skills Development Centre (YESDEC), which was one of the major subsidiaries of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency(GYEEDA). Information received by the paper indicates that all coordinators have been instructed to hand over tools and other logistics at their disposal back to the JOSPONG Group of Companies, the organization which had oversight responsibility over the module. The YESDEC beneficiaries were given skills training in beauty care, fashion and garment design, grass cutter rearing, liquid soap making and food and catering services. Other modules under YESDEC included Dry Season farming and Barbering Services. According to reports, coordinators at both regional and district levels would be paid arrears, awaiting further instructions from the Ministry. The decision follows recent controversies surrounding some alleged financial embezzlement and contractual misappropriation under the GYEEDA progamme as contained in a Ministerial Committee Report commissioned by Mr. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah. The decision, however, appears to have angered some coordinators and beneficiaries who are lamenting that most of them would be rendered jobless. A coordinator bewailed in an interview with the paper that thousands of beneficiaries across the country would be affected by the decision and insisted that once the programme was running smoothly, it was not necessary for the Ministry to suspend it.