Youth Are Prepared To Do Battle With Gov't

Over The Freeze On Public Sector Employment

The Alliance of Youth for Action (AYA) has learnt with utter shock and dismay, the decision of the National Democratic Congress government to pursue and contract a US 535 million Economic Governance and Poverty Reduction Credit facility, swallowing line, hook and sinker several conditionalities of the World Bank, that clearly, are detrimental not only to the youth of this country but indeed the entire country.

Even though government spin doctors are at their wits end, trying albeit unsuccessfully to create the impression that the credit facility is the best thing to have happened to this country, the facts remain and Ghanaians must be told that an upward adjustment in the prices of utilities such as electricity and water and petroleum products are eminent as a direct consequence of this World Bank – Ghana Government marriage.

What is even more worrying is the fact that the Ghana government, lacking know –how on economic governance, has succumbed to the World Bank demand to freeze Public Sector employment. This conditionality stipulates that from now on, employment in the Public sector can only take place as replacement of staff on death or retirement. For young men and women seeking to make any decent leaving working in the public sector, we must pray that someone dies or someone reaches the age of sixty.

We find this new position of the NDC, hypocritical and a betrayal of the trust of the good people of Ghana. For a party that won the support of the youth because it promised to create jobs and empower the youth, to after only seven months in office, abandon its own promises and proceed on an agenda that disadvantages the youth and incapacitate them as useful citizens of the country by denying them employment opportunities, is to say the least scandalous. The government has exhibited a gross sense of insensitivity to the plight of the youth and students of this country.

This dangerous attempt on the part of government would surely compound an already volatile situation. Unemployment has been cited as a course for the increased spate of armed robberies and general crime and insecurity in this country. The ascendency of cyber crime (sakawa) has also been blamed on lack of employment opportunities. Prostitution and other vices are all said to be resulting from the lack of employment opportunities in this country. The NDC government has made a bold statement; it is unwilling or incapable of handling this situation. They however intend to worsen it by this reckless action. The hopes of over one hundred thousand graduates, who aspire to join the public sector annually, have been dashed. The destinies of several millions of Ghanaian students now hang in limbo: what happens after school?

The NDC is a social democratic party. They do not believe in the private sector and so do not empower it. Now we cannot get employment in the public sector. Where is the better Ghana we were promised?

The Alliance of Youth for Action (AYA) invites all young men and women of this country to raise their voices against this capricious arrangement. We call on the National Union of Ghana Students, the Ghana National Union of Polytechnic Students, all youth organizations, all civil society organizations, religious bodies, the youth wings of the various political parties to brace themselves up and get battle ready to embark upon a massive nationwide demonstration to register our total displeasure with this development that has the tendency of destroying the peace and stability that we enjoy.

Arise Ghana youth for your country. At this crucial moment the nation demands your devotion. Let us all unite to uphold her and make her great and strong. Let us resist oppressor’s rule by fighting against this neo-colonialist imposition by the Britton Woods institution. In the service of Ghana

Signed:

PIUS ENAM HADZIDE (SPOKESPERSON) 0246 553824