NYA outlines guarantor duties while proposing tax relief for volunteering private firms training apprentices

The National Youth Authority (NYA) has warned that guarantors for apprentices in the National Apprenticeship Program (NAP) will have to repay government money if the apprentice drops out without a valid reason.

The CEO of the NYA, Osman Abdulai Ayariga, explained that the government is covering the costs that parents or guardians would normally pay. Because of this, guarantors will be held responsible if someone leaves the program for reasons like just choosing to quit.

“So far as the government is taking the burden off you, the guarantor or the parent who is supposed to pay for the apprenticeship program for the students, the government is seeking that you as a guarantor, once your ward drops out for reasons beyond his or her control, i.e for health grounds or the person just wants to drop out because the person feels that he or she wants to drop out, the guarantor will be held responsible to pay back the money that the government has invested in the apprentice,” Ayariga emphasized.

He said only people with trackable salaries like government workers and chiefs can serve as guarantors.“For guarantors, we will be looking at well-known people, maybe chiefs, assembly members, people who work in the government areas, people we can track their salaries or people who we can’t trace to pay back whatever monies that government would have invested in the wards who have eloped,” he noted.

The NAP targets unemployed youth between the ages of 15 and 35. So far, 70,000 people have applied, but only 10,000 will be chosen this year. Ayariga said the program will include women and persons with disabilities.

He also said private companies that train apprentices for free might receive tax benefits in return. “We are looking at a private public partnership. We are hoping that private people will decide to train the apprentices for free. And once they are training them for free, then we will have to talk to the Ministry of Finance to give them some tax holidays,” he explained.

Meanwhile, Kofi Asare of Africa Education Watch advised the government to keep the selection process fair and avoid politics. “One of the reasons why past NAP has failed was that they were politicised. Many of them were implemented by party actors who were responsible for selecting beneficiaries. If we repeat that, we won’t make any headway…”