Minority to force Baffour-Awuah summon over employment figures

The Minority will agitate for the summon of the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations to explain to members of Parliament the number of jobs created so far, 3news.com has gathered.

Richard Quashigah told 3FM’s Kwakye Afreh Nuamah on Thursday that previous attempts to have government officials justify employment figures put out in the public sphere have failed because of the posture of the Speaker.

“We have tried to interrogate with little success,” he said, but assured that: “we will see how we will bring [the Employment Minister] to the House to explain the [current] situation”.

The Employment Minister, Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, had told a gathering during the launch of the National Builders Corps at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) on Tuesday that 1,096,404 jobs have specifically been created by the government in the formal sector.

“So what happened within the informal economy is not even accounted for here,” he noted.

‘So questionable’

But this has raised eyebrows among members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) with its members in Parliament questioning the figure put out by the minister.

Mr Quashigah, who is the Deputy Ranking Member on the Employment, Social Welfare and State Enterprises Committee in Parliament, said the “chunk” of the numbers may have come from agriculture.

In that case, he argues, the figures would not be correct as stakeholders in that sector contested employment figures put out by the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, last year.

The Keta MP said even the remainder – after deducting the agric figures – “is so questionable”.