Youth unemployment biggest headache for Jaman North  

The Jaman North Constituency was created in 2004 by the Electoral Commission, along with 29 other new ones ahead of the general election.

Located in the Jaman North District of the Bono Region, the constituency has a population of more than 102,000, with majority of them into farming.

The constituency, which has Sampa as its capital, has a land size of about 640 square kilometers and shares boundaries with Cote d’Ivoire. It also shares local boundaries with Tain, Jaman South and Banda, all in the Bono Region.

Major towns located in the constituency include Jamera, Kabile, Bonakire, Adadiem, Jinini, Duadaso and Suma-Ahenkro.

The major economic activity in the constituency is food and cash crop production with yam, maize, cassava, cocoyam, groundnut and garden eggs as the main crops. The constituency is one of the leading constituencies in the country when it comes to cashew production.

In the just-ended 2020 elections, Mr Frederick Yaw Ahenkwah, a teacher by profession, who represented the National Democratic Congress (NDC), unseated the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament, Mr Siaka Stevens.

Biggest headache

Mr Ahenkwah is now faced with the task of addressing the unemployment situation in the constituency, which he told the Daily Graphic as part of its Constituency Watch series was his biggest headache.

“We have a chunk of the youth who are not employed, so it is my vision to make sure that within the next four years, most of the unemployed youth get employment,” he said.

He said that would be done through a model he had developed known as the ‘Youth Apprenticeship and Skill Training Programme’.

“Every year I will enrol some of the youth and at the end of my four years, I want to see a chunk of the youth having a skill. I am in talks with MASLOC and some financial institutions in the constituency to help establish some of the youth who will successfully complete the skills training programme,” he stated.

Road network

Mr Ahenkwah also cited poor road network as one of the major challenges in the constituency that he intended to solve with the help of the government.

“Looking at our strategic location, we share boundaries with Cote d’Ivoire, Jaman South, Tain and Banda. We have a district that is linking about four different districts. As a border town, our principal streets need to be tarred to give the town a facelift,” he stated.

Early political life

Mr Ahenkwah described his entry into politics as divine, stating that, “I was born into NDC and brought up by the principles of NDC. NDC is in my blood and my genes so when the opportunity came for me to serve the party, I was willing and ready.”