Youth Council ED says budget allocated to youth is not enough

National Youth Council’s Executive Director Lamin Darboe has argued against what he called government’s insufficient budget allocation to the youth sector in it’s 2020 budget estimates.

Government allocated 113.3 million dalasi for the ministry of Youth and Sports  for youth activities for 2020 but Mr Darboe said that is not enough, asking the government to do more for the young people.

“If our young people  cannot have opportunities here,  more of them will be coming from the rural to urban or from urban to other parts of the world for greener pasture,” he said.

He expressed concern with the that the fund that was approved for youth activities last year was not infact entirely not disbursed.

“We did not receive the entire funds allocated for the National Youth Council (NYC) in 2019 and it has been the case throughout,” he lamented.

Mr Darboe said on December 11 last year, all the satellite institutions of ministry of Youth and Sports MoYS were at the Ministry of Finance requesting for their allocation because they needed the funds to spend on services but that fund was never disbursed.

He further stated that the Council’s subvention from the ministry for salaries and other logistics is meagre, and their support to youth groups is limited.

“This is not enough, at all. Even though the budget has been increased, I’m not excited about it because the increment does not mean the funds will be disbursed on time.”

He said NYC’s planned programmes for 2020 include running a national youth volunteer programme and job matching.

He noted that the programme is initiated to positively impact in the lives of young people, but revealed that one of the key challenges the institution has been grappling with is that approved budgets are not disbursed.

“It will be difficult to create opportunities for young people if resources are not available or not disbursed when the need arise,” Darboe said.