Ministries urged to collaborate with employers' association

Accra, Oct. 7, GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor on Tuesday tasked the Ministries of Finance and Economic Planning and Manpower, Youth and Employment to collaborate with Ghana Employers' Association to develop national productivity indicators for each sector of the economy. In a speech read for him by Mr Felix Owusu-Agyapong, Minister of Energy, at the 48th Annual General Meeting of the GEA, President Kufuor stressed that unless there was increased productivity to make enterprises competitive in the global market and create employment, increased wages and salaries as well as high standard of living would elude all.

President Kufuor said the issue of national campaign for increased productivity must be taken seriously because it had helped to propel the growth of some countries in Asia.

"These countries through hard work and setting productivity indicators for economic industrial sectors and public sectors and holding office holders accountable to these indicators have produced great results for increased per capita income and increased standard of living," he said.

To give impetus to the campaign, President Kufuor said the Management Development and Productivity Institute would be restructured to play a lead role in the national campaign for increased productivity. The government is therefore committed to providing resources to the MDPI to refocus on productivity improvement in both public and private sectors in line with objectives outlined in the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy II.

Funds will be made available to MDPI through subvention and funding for contract research into productivity improvement programmes and commercialisation of research outputs and services. Mr. Charles Cofie, President of the GEA, said lack of a productivity framework and its resultant indices to form the basis for determining compensation and remuneration packages had resulted in workers' salaries being determined by factors such as increase in prices of fuel, utility tariffs.

Nana Akomea, Minister of Manpower, said the tripartite committee, made of government, labour and employers, would by the end of the year come out with objective criteria for the measurement of productivity. This, he said, would make the reward system for workers to be done more scientifically. The meeting was held on the theme: "National Productivity for Employment Growth and Development." The meeting re-elected Mr Charles Cofie and Ms Joyce Aryee as President and Vice-President respectively for 2008-2010.