By Dennis Peprah
Sunyani, (Bono), March 27, GNA – Sunyani, the Bono regional capital has experienced a rise in rural-urban drift in recent times, with most of the travellers coming from the Northern part of the country to find jobs.
However, the high hopes and aspirations of the young boys and girls to look for decent jobs seemed in despair, as most of them have ended as wheelbarrows and truck pushers.
Sadly, some of the girls, including teenage mothers are engaged in the head potting business (Kayayie), with others engaged by chop bar operators for exploitative labour of cutting firewood and washing bowls. Some of them also sell coconut for living however their living condition seemed disturbing as the rains set-in.
They lack shelter and are using the premises of stores and shops in the Sunyani Central Business District (CBD) as places of abode. Interestingly, the shop and store owners watched unperturbed because they regarded their night presence as useful to keep watch for their shops and stores.
In an interview some of the wheelbarrow pushers told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that they were Senior High School graduates who had arrived in the city to get something worth doing to support their families back home in the North.
According to them the truck and wheelbarrow pushing businesses were very tedious, however they were left with no other option because they did not have any other alternative socio-economic livelihoods.
They therefore appealed to President John Dramani Mahama to create jobs for them as the president promised in the 2024 electioneering campaign.
Zakaria Tiyumba, an 18-year-old wheelbarrow pusher said he was forced to migrate to the south because of the high level of poverty in the North.
As a SHS graduate, he said his parents back home could not afford to cater for his tertiary education, praying that an opportunity would be created for him to abandon the business and engage in employable skill training.
Another wheelbarrow pusher, Yusif Alhassan, 20 years, said because they hired wheelbarrows for use, they ended up using most of their earnings to pay for the machine.
“In fact, if I get any opportunity now, I stop the work and either continue my education or learn a skill to secure my future because this work is not only tedious but unprofitable too,” he stated.
Salamatu Fatima, a head potter, appealed to President Mahama to create more jobs for the young people in the North, saying that would discourage them from migrating to the south for jobs.
She said some of her friends back in the North had also developed the interest to join her in the south because of lack of employment there.
Fatima said their major problem now was shelter, regretting that because of lack of shelter some of the girls were forced to sleep with their male counterparts.
“The President promised that he will create more jobs and move some of us south because we thought we could come here and get some of the jobs to do,” Rahman Osman, a truck pusher stated.
GNA
DEN/KOA