The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) and INZAG Germany GmBH, a construction and civil engineering firm in Germany have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to recruit some 700 young artisans across the country.
Beneficiaries; including masons, plumbers, carpenters, tilers, PoP designers, fabricators, steel benders among others in the artisanal industry are expected to be recruited under the programme.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) YEA, Kofi Agyepong, addressing a press conference yesterday in Accra, said the aim of the MoU was to present opportunity to recruit over 700 artisans to be employed by INZAG Germany GmBH.
He continued that the artisans would be employed by the company for the construction and rehabilitation of 64.7 km Ashaiman to Akosombo dual carriage bypass road.
According to him, the beneficiaries would be recruited and trained by the authority and posted to the construction firm to undertake a two years contract.
“The recruits are not only going to earn a living for themselves, through this employment, but will probably contribute their expertise to the construction of this major state assets,” he said.
He indicated that the agreement has been carefully put together and the welfare and safety of workers also taken into consideration.
“Workers to be employed under this agreement will have their income taxes, Social Security contributions and other statutory payments made on their behalf by Insert Germany,” he assured.
Mr Agyepong said, protective clauses to cater for Rex, another occupational hazards that may unlikely occur to any worker during working hours or in the process of discharging their assigned duties.
He reiterated that there were outlined measures and procedures to provide proper forum for complaint.
This, he said, would bring disciplinary actions and dispute resolutions in the event that such situation happened in future.
He pointed out that no person recruited would be paid less than the minimum wage and would not be deprived of their rights, and that security and statutory payments will be made to the beneficiaries of the module.
The Youth Employment Agency, he said, would focus on training, development and upscaling of artisans to tackle the unemployment situation in the country.
He disclosed that the unemployment situation in the country is born out of lack of requisite and quality skill set to boost their production and achieve the organisational goals.
“We started with employment of 6000 community health workers, 500 prison officers and now we also open the training for 5000 Security officers and that is a major achievement for the Youth Employment Agency,” Kofi said.
