Mr Isaac Adongo, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolgatanga Central, has called for a collective effort in finding a lasting solution to the unemployment situation in the country before it gets out of hand.
He said this when addressing fresh students of the Bolgatanga Technical University’s Chapter of the Tertiary Education Institution Network (TEIN) of National Democratic Congress (NDC) organised by the Regional youth wing at Sumbrungu in the Upper East Region.
According to the Bolgatanga law maker, there are no enough opportunities in the public sector to employ the teeming graduates that are churned out on yearly basis, “so it is more important for us at this point in time to collectively find very good solutions to deal with the problem of unemployment before it gets out of hand.”
Mr Adongo however, chided the government over the promise it made in the recent mid-year budget review that it will provide one million jobs within three years. He thus, observed that the promise is unsustainable. According to him, it is because government just made a promise without telling Ghanaians where the jobs would come from and without drawing any comprehensive roadmap plan to achieving it.
He further noted that the public sector employed just a handful of Ghanaians but more than 90 per cent of the tax revenue is spent on paying wages and servicing public debts.
“The honest truth is that our public sector today employs about 700,000 people… In addition to that, the monies that we are borrowing now take about 91 per cent of our tax revenues just to service those public debts.
“If government is struggling to pay 700,000 people, how would it be able to pay one million people? Clearly, we must find a sustainable solution to deal with the unemployment problem.”
However, Mr Adongo suggested that the private sector across the world has demonstrated a better track record of providing sustainable jobs than the public sector as it could employ millions while the public sector employ thousands.
Meanwhile, Mr Adongo bemoaned the high level of risk and uncertainty in the country, noting that the situation will impede private sector growth and thereby worsening the unemployment situation.
“Unfortunately, the private sector works by looking at the actions of government in terms of creating uncertainties and increasing risks in the economy and we presently have the highest levels of uncertainties and risks for the private business sector.”
As a result, Mr Adongo stated that the high risk and uncertainty situation in the country was reflective in the records of the Bank of Ghana as reported in the last summary of the economic and financial data, which showed that non-performing loans increased from 15 per cent to 17 per cent. He added that people not being able to pay back their loans is another testament of the risky working environment in the country.
He therefore, called on the government to create a conducive environment for the private sector to thrive to enable it employ more unemployed individuals in the country who are mostly youths.
In conclusion, Mr Adongo recalled that the introduction of technical education in Ghana was meant to address the problem of unemployment but that had not been realised.
READ ALSO: Governance expert calls for ‘Aboboyaa’ regulation in Ghana
