Strategy Director at the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Selorm Branttie, has revealed that government’s Nation Builders’ Corps (NABCo) was only intended to be a one-off programme instituted by government.

According to him, the NABCo was not supposed to be a permanent part of Ghana’s employment landscape. Mr Branttie explained that its primary motive was to help transition graduates into the job market.

“It was just supposed to be a one-off programme which was supposed to help transition graduates; I think both SHS and University graduates into some form of employment where there was a possibility at the end that they would be absorbed into the pool of employment either in the government sector or the private sector”.
Selorm Branttie

Mr Branttie indicated that the challenge with the initiative brought on by government is the fact that most beneficiaries had misinterpreted it as a guaranteed means of securing a job in the government sector or the private sector. He highlighted that, for him, it was very clear that that was not going to happen.

“First of all, because this would involve a huge process relating to recruitment and etc. and also budgeting. And it was very clear from the onset that government did not have the kind of public service structure [needed]. That itself requires some kind of efficiency”.
Selorm Branttie

The IMANI Strategy Director noted that if one looks critically at the NABCo initiative, especially in some areas, they were productive and in other areas they weren’t productive enough.

“But then we’re looking at an already bloated government employment scenario, where in a lot of offices, there are so many redundancies that already need to be stripped or streamlined. And now this burden of the NABCO people coming in and taken full time into this situation will only cause chaos at the end of the day and a lot of unproductive people will still be under the government employment for whose value addition is very questionable in terms of what they add to the existing system”.
Selorm Branttie

Effects of digitization of the country on NABCo

Commenting on employing the majority of the NABCo personnel into the government sector, Mr Branttie underscored that it would have been unfeasible especially now that government is rapidly going digital. He expressed that the country is currently looking at situations where certain processes are being automated and therefore the human intervention is not even required at all.

“And so, these things that happen have culminated into a situation where NABCO beneficiaries even after their dispensation has run out, feel entitled that they should be able to be absorbed into the government stream or the government labour pool”.
Selorm Branttie

On February 7, 2022, the leadership of the Coalition of Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) expressed its intention to stage a demonstration on 15th February 2022 to press home their demands for permanent jobs. Speaking at a National Democratic Congress press conference, the patron of the coalition, Nana Barima Asamoah, opined that the NABCO members were “perishing in extreme hunger and deprivation”.

Mr Asamoah complained that the NABCO members had been abandoned by the state.

“The actual ground [for the demonstration] is that after we were compelled to avail ourselves as power horses and bulldogs to canvas votes for the NPP to renew its mandate; we have been left in limbo. We are displeased with the government. As we speak now, we are here on a solid ticket of the [NDC’s] recognition of our grievance and their commitment to helping us surcharge the government and hold Nana Addo’s government accountable.”
Nana Barima Asamoah

In November 2021, the NABCO secretariat admitted to some challenges with persons who had for several months not received their allowances and said it had prioritised payment of those allowances to those who were owed about two months allowance. It however gave assurances that the payments to all trainees are being made and would soon reflect in the beneficiaries’ accounts.