Yaw Osafo Marfo, Senior Minister
A labour expert, Benjamin Arthur has urged the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to provide jobs for the masses if they wish to retain power in the next elections.
The Senior Minister, Yaw Osarfo Maafo, during the 2017 Ghana Economic Forum on Monday stated that “the public sector is full” and government “may even have to lay some workers off.”
But speaking on the Gold Power Drive with Nana Darkwah Gyasi Wednesday, Benjamin Arthur urged government to focus on job creation in collaboration with the private sector.
He said it is the responsibility of every government to provide employment for the citizenry but he was quick to note that persons seeking employment in government institutions should consider acquiring entrepreneurial skills as part of their training and practice to make them competitive in the world of work.
He argues that government is already a minority in terms of job creation hence people searching for job opportunities in the country need to have the requisite skills to be able to fit into the private sector.
“Government employs people through public private partnership (PPP) so even though the Senior Minister has said that there might even be layoffs that will happen to those public institutions, when it has to do with employment creation, I have confidence that the government will do something about it because other than that they should not even be thinking of wining the next power,” he said.
The Ghana Statistical Service Living Standard Survey Round 6 of 2014 indicates that 76 percent of all employed persons in Ghana are unskilled.
