The Deputy Secretary-General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Joshua Ansah, has stated that, the TUC of Ghana has never supported the government’s idea of going to the IMF. He said that the union has almost always opposed the idea of the country going to the IMF.

He mentioned that going to the IMF has had adverse effects on the people, and workers have never benefited from any IMF program that the country has accepted. He added that with this very application to the IMF program, the IMF team came to their offices and consulted them on their opinions on the IMF program.

“We told them categorically that, they know our position on the IMF, that we never support any IMF program because the dire consequences was on workers. We also reiterated our point that the things we fear about this IMF is their conditionalities and we know that the moment Ghana goes to this IMF program, there’s going to be this issue about employment, issue about reduced salary, issue about… negative things on workers.”
Joshua Ansah

Mr. Ansah bemoaned that the union made it clear to the IMF team that these were the reasons why they were opposing the IMF program, saying that once the government has taken the decision, nobody can stop it. He explained that the government has now applied for the IMF program and “lo and behold the freezing of employment in the public and civil service have come to being.”

According to him, the freeze on employment in the public and civil sectors was a complete total freeze, unlike the previous one where it was a net total freeze. He said that they were expecting full details of this total freeze from the government.

“We actually digested the budget at a meeting and there was no detail about the freeze. Whether it’s net freeze or half freeze, so all what has appeared in the budget statement is that there is a total freeze on employment in 2023 which the TUC opposes permanently”
Joshua Ansah

Ghana has about 30 million people now, and only about 700 people including doctors and nurses are providing services to over 30 million people, he said. He added that Ghanaians should assume what was going to happen in 2023 when government freezes employment in the public and civil sectors.

Employment Freeze- Growth Opportunity for Private Sector?

When asked for his opinion on the matter, an economics professor, Professor Ebo Turkson, stated that, the government’s decision to freeze employment was going to create an atmosphere for the private sector to create jobs, especially for the youth. He also said that , the government cannot create that atmosphere for both the private and the public sector. He stated that he expected to see the TUC be on the neck of government to enable the private sector to expand and employ.

Commenting further on the topic, Mr. Joshua Ansah stated that the government should know the economic strengths of the country and it should know that if the private sector is the engine of growth, and the government thinks that, that is where employment can be generated then the government should channel its energy there.

The Deputy Secretary-General of TUC made a point that, the cutting of cost does not come with the freezing of employment, and he questioned how much the government was going to save when it freezes employment. He iterated that the TUC cannot contain the statement in the 2023 budget to freeze employment for the next three years.