The government's decision to continue with the Nation’s Builders Corp (NABCO) has received major criticism from one of the pressure groups in the country- the Citizen Watch.
According to Citizen Watch, the government cannot sustain the current model of NABCO hence the need to redirect the program to the private sector.
“With the ongoing digitalization program, we believe the government should reduce it’s labour strength, and redirect NABCO to the private sector. This would help ease pressure on the wage bill, which accounts for almost 60 percent of our total revenue," the Citizen Watch said in a statement issued and signed by Francis Agbenyegah, the Convener of the group.
For the past three years, the government has spent over GHc 3billion as wages on 100,000 NABCO recruits.
This, Citizen Watch is of the view that, the monies could have built factories across the country through the support of the private sector where the youths would be in outsourcing program and also be part of the agricultural value chain, which is more sustainable.
The statement reiterates that the GHc 3billion spent on the NABCO recruits could have been channeled through the banks for the private sector to access and build factories across the country to ease the high rate of unemployment in the country, as they would have been absorbed by the private sector and also participate as forming small and medium enterprises.
“The GHc 3 billion could have be channeled through ADB Bank, GCB Bank, National Investment Bank among others for the incubation of SMEs to create a more sustainable income generating ventures. We need to build entrepreneurs in the country to propel growth as we keeping saying the private sector is the engine of growth,” it said.
"We are grateful to the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta for letting us know the true state of affairs and any further expenditure on NABCO from the government without integrating them into the private sector would be a waste of resources. The government should realign and also program the NABCO to be more private sector driven”.
Citizen Watch research has revealed that out of 500 NABCO recruits interviewed, 80 percent of them either sit idle at work or don’t show up for work, but receive their monthly allowances due to lack of monitoring, which clearly shows that the program is a failed venture hence needs a redirection.
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