Our productivity and work ethic unsatisfactory - Akufo-Addo

President Akufo-Addo has described as unsatisfactory the work ethic and productivity levels of Ghanaian workers.

This, according to him, was the cause of the country’s dwindling economic fortunes.

Speaking Monday at the May Day celebration in Accra he said: “When efforts are made to improve pay levels without commensurate improvements in productivity the results inevitably points to macro-economic instability for our country.

“It means the size of the formal sector shrinks even further. I do not suggest the current pay levels are satisfactory in all sectors of our economy. But I am saying the productivity levels and work attitude are unsatisfactory in all levels of the economy.”

Bringing more workers into public sector

Also, he observed that it was time to enroll more workers into the formal sector explaining that it would be in the best interest of the country as figures available showed that very few workers are into the formal sector despite the country’s huge workforce base.

He told the gathering that: ”We all know that the number of people in what can be described as formal work is a tiny part of the workforce of our country. The figures that I have seen suggest that the size of the workforce in our country is about 13 million people and there are less than 2 million in formal work.

“Unfortunately much of our preoccupation seems to be with this small group in the formal sector. It is time for us all to bring more of our people into the formal sector. It will be, indeed, in everybody’s interest to do so.”

He said the first order of business therefore must be to get “our economy out of the doldrums and to create the atmosphere for our entrepreneurs to bring on the jobs.”

For him therefore “There are things the government must do and there are things the citizens as a whole and organized labour in particular must do” stating that “We in government have set about our task with zeal. Our first budget, the Asempa Budget, has set out clearly the road map to bring prosperity to Ghana.

“We have taken the important steps to create an enabling environment for the private sector to flourish and create jobs. We have reduced taxes, including taxes on kayayei, inflation is on the decline, interest rates are on the decline, and [there’s] relative stability of the exchange rate.”