Labour Expert Senyo Adjabeng says the future looks bleak for government’s employment agenda if immediate steps are not taken to address the issues confronting the labour market in Ghana.
The Minister for Finance, Hon Ken Ofori-Atta has been captured at the University of Professional Studies, Accra. He was heard telling fresh graduates to their faces that the government can no longer employ graduates on its payroll.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony, Ken Ofori-Atta said that there are over 650,000 people on the government payroll. And the country spent about 60 per cent of its total revenue on these people. In view of this, the government cannot risk employing new people to be paid by Controller and Accountant General Department.
He said, “We have got to a period where most people look for jobs with the government sector. That payroll is full. We can tell you that because we are spending huge sums of money of our total revenue on over six hundred and fifty thousand people. The question now is whether UPSA has been able to train you to be entrepreneurs”.
This portion of the Finance Minister’s address at the university has really weakened a lot of youths in this country. They have countered this statement that not all students at the university offered entrepreneurship courses so the advice that all graduates should venture into entrepreneurship is very wrong and unacceptable.
Commenting on the matter Mr. Adjabeng noted that government needs to act fast to avert the situation in the labour front.
