FLIC

THE Minister for Youth and Sports, Alhaji Muntaka Mohammed Mubarak, has advised parents to identify the talents in their children and help develop them.
He said the youth possessed qualities and ideas that if properly harnessed could help in the development of the country.
At the launch of the Future Leaders Investment Club (FLIC) in Accra on Wednesday, the minister said it was unfortunate that the great qualities possessed by the youth had not been effectively harnessed due to numerous constraints such as inadequate education and training and unemployment.
He said the government had put in measures to establish a firm basis for an appropriate youth development agenda to improve the living conditions of the youth.
Alhaji Mohammed Mubarak observed that in order to create the necessary environment to promote youth activities, there was the need to enact a workable and scientific National Youth Council Law.
He said the existing law governing the operation of youth activities was outmoded and out of tune with modern and scientific youth activities.
The minister said currently, the World Assembly of Youth (WAY) and the Commonwealth Youth Programme (CYP) had come out with practical and appropriate approaches to youth work that needed to be factored into the law.
He indicated that the ministry had a draft Youth Bill that it intended circulating to youth organisations and other stakeholders to be subjected to scrutiny by stakeholders in order to fashion out a more dynamic and realistic bill to enhance the ministry’s operations.
He said it was the intention of the government to empower the youth to enable them to meet their own challenges and solve them, adding that “this we hope to do by the creation and sustenance of the enabling conditions for young people to act on their own instead of relying on others to determine their welfare”.
Alhaji Mohammed Mubarak observed that while opportunities for wage employment were not available in Ghana, the youth had tremendous potential for self-employment through entrepreneurial activities.
He explained that micro-credit schemes that provided business loans, training and advisory services and other initiatives designed to help the youth had proven to be more effective strategies for job creation and youth empowerment.
He commended the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of FLIC, Mr Emmanuel Dei-Tumi, for the initiative and hoped that the club would not only provide the start-up capital for members to invest in businesses of their choice, but would provide members with the necessary skills and knowledge to enable them to succeed in their respective ventures.
The Managing Director of GLICO Life Insurance Company, Mr Kwame Achampong-Kyei, said savings and investment was very important in a nation’s development, since it was the first stage in capital formation.
He said Ghanaians were currently witnessing an unprecedented insatiable desire of the youth to get rich and financially independent through unfortunate dubious means such as internet fraud, popularly known as “sakawa”.
“It is a very good thing for the youth of this country to desire for wealth but these riches must be attained through the adoption of an obsessive savings culture, which must be inculcated in them right from school,” he said.
He explained that members of the club would be covered by insurance and would be adequately compensated in case of any misfortune.
The CEO of the club, Mr Emmanuel Dei-Tumi, said the main aim of the club was to create a platform for young people to be able to invest towards their future.
He believed that young people who were determined to have a better future would join the club and hoped that by December, this year the club would have 20,000 subscribers.

Picture: Some students registering to join the club after the programme.

Picture saved on machine 139 as FLIC