General News of Tuesday, 8 August 2017
Source: Myjoyonline.com
2017-08-08
Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, Labour Minister E-mailTweet+1WhatsApp
The Ghana Federation of Labour has charged government to fulfil its promise to create jobs rather than threatening to lay off public sector workers.
General Secretary of the Federation, Abraham Koomson, has also questioned how many jobs government has created in the past six months.
Speaking to Daniel Dadzie on News Desk on the JOYNEWS channel on MultiTV, he said they are earnestly waiting for the one-district one–factory promise to get the many unemployed Ghanaians employed.
According to him, if that policy “ever takes off” then it will provide employment to the many unemployed, but laying people off is not the way to go.
The Federation’s demand for government to fulfil its campaign promises regarding jobs follows recent suggestions by the Senior Minister Yaw Osafo Maafo that there could be job cut in the public sector.
Whilst addressing the National Economic Forum on Monday, the Senior Minister said the public sector might have to lay off workers due to the ongoing International Monetary Fund (IMF) program.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said the number of jobs created will judge the success of his government.
Job creation was one of his major campaign promises in the lead up to the 2016 elections.
At his first encounter with senior journalists at the Flagstaff House, the President said his government’s Planting for Food and Jobs Project, the one-district one-factory programme among others are aimed at creating jobs.
The Ghana Statistical Service has estimated the country’s unemployment rate at 5.20 percent, a figure which represented a dip from last year’s 5.96 percent.
Also, a research conducted by the Institute of Statistics, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) this year has revealed only 10 percent of graduates are able to find jobs after their first year out of school.
But the Senior Minister said there is no job in the public sector for the many unemployed youths in the country.
His comments appear not to have gone down well with the Federation.
“Even President Trump who people are saying is not doing well in the United States he has created more than 3000 jobs.
“I am not saying let’s compare the two economies but if you take political power, you deal with job creation and then corruption, that is Africa for you,” he said.
Mr Koomson wants to know when government will settle down and start creating jobs adding that they should have done their groundwork rather than assume office and be saying there are no jobs.
Meanwhile, some university trained teachers have been demonstrating Tuesday demanding jobs from government.
One of the demonstrators told Joy News they have been unemployed since they finished with their National Service.
“We are frustrated as we do not have any job to do. We can impart knowledge to children in the public schools as graduate teachers,” he said accusing the government of letting them waste away.
