Government does not owe you jobs – Kofi Bentil to nurses

The vice president of IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil, has said government does not have any responsibility to find the teeming unemployed graduate nurses across the country jobs.

His comments come after the Coalition for Public Trained Registered Nurses and Midwives described government’s plan to enroll them unto the Nation Builders Corps (NaBCo) as “very sad.”

Signing unto the policy, they say “will be the beginning of the extinction of nursing and midwifery in Ghana” thus they cannot sell their profession and dignity out for ¢700.

Mr. Bentil observed that if the nurses feel they are worth more than ¢700, they should go find their own jobs.

“The problem with nurses and I think teachers also in Ghana is that government assumes the responsibility of finding them jobs,” he said.

“I don’t think government has any responsibility to find you a job if you finish nursing school and you are a nurse,” he said on Newsfile over the weekend.

Government, according to him, should diverse itself of “this responsibility that we have to find nurses a job.”

Meanwhile, more than 40,000 graduates have applied for placement under NaBCo programme as nurses across the country today – Monday, May 7, 2018, are demonstrating to express their displeasure over plans to get them enrolled on it.



Last Tuesday, May 1, this year, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo launched the NaBCo in Kumasi as an initiative by the government to provide employment for 100,000 unemployed graduates this year.

The programme will initially operate seven modules designed to meet the pressing needs of the nation, while providing jobs for the teeming youth who have received tertiary education but are struggling to find jobs, partly because of the ban placed on public sector employment by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The beneficiaries will be engaged for three years, and they are expected to earn a monthly stipend of GH¢700 each.