No embargo on employment –Terkper

Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Seth Terkper says government has not placed an embargo on employment in the public sector.

The Minister insists, “there is a size” to be taken into account when employing people in the public sector hence, government cannot keep an open-ended public service.

“Employment is not just about the public service… We cannot keep an open-ended public service. We appreciate the need for employment. If we just kept it open-ended we will have people sitting and doing no job and being paid and we will use a disproportionate amount of the tax revenue to pay wages, allowances, and others, and not have enough for development,” he explained.

He says there are other sectors in the public service that are employing the needed human resource to fill in vacant positions.

The Minister added that “when people retire; they resign, they can be replaced but we cannot increase the public service from 600, 000…That will happen when the economy expands.”

He is hopeful that the economy will expand rapidly to give “health workers, teachers, agric extension officers” among others, the opportunity to be employed.

In a related development, Mr. Terkper defused claims that government does not treat public sector workers equally.

The Finance Minister revealed this in a joint interview with Radio Gold’s Alhassan Suhuyini and Citi FM’s Bernard Avle.