Ghanaians expect 2012 budget to focus on job creation

Just two days ahead of the presentation of the 2012 budget to the parliament by Ghana's Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Kwabena Duffour, many residents here expressed their hope that the budget would focus on job creation.

Talking with Xinhua on Monday at the port city of Tema, 38 kilometers east of Accra, local residents were quite optimistic that the government was going to focus more on pragmatic measures that would address many problems, particularly the unemployment faced by young job seekers.

Duffour is set to present the new budget to the parliament on Wednesday, the third budget to be presented to the legislature by the government led by the National Democratic Congress since it came to power early 2009.

Sammy Addade, a businessman in Sakumono, a suburb of Tema, told Xinhua that he expected the government to create a congenial atmosphere that would enable private businesses to operate and make profits to create employment in the country.

He complained that interest rates were high, seriously affecting his activities, and urged the government to do something to reduce the interest rates.

Anthony Agyekum, an unemployed resident in Tema, expressed his hope that the 2012 budget statement would come out clearly with very concrete measures as to how to create jobs to reduce the unemployment rate in the country.

"I would want the government to tell us, we, the jobless, how they are going to create jobs for us to do. The lip service has just been too much for my liking. It was time our leaders did something better for us this time," he said.

Some commercial vehicle drivers appealed to the government to come out and tell the people when they would be completing the numerous road projects currently on-going in the country.

They contended that the roads were simply bad and the government should find the needed money and pay the contractors to execute and complete all such projects in order to save their cars from frequent breakdown.

A civil servant, who spoke on anonymity, was not happy with the numerous labor unrest that had occurred in the country in 2011.

He urged the government to look for very innovative ways that would help resolve all the disputes so that the country would not experience strikes in the coming year.

"The strike action embarked upon by various workers from teachers to doctors and others had had untold hardships on the country. We were all witnesses to what happened with regard to the almost three weeks industrial action of public sector doctors," he complained.

"I think it behoves the (president) Atta Mills-led government to work out a solution in the budget statement yet to be presented to the country so that labor unrest would be a thing of the past," he asked.

He also hoped that the government would do more in terms of job creation.

"There are not enough jobs in the system for the many graduates coming out from the universities each year. The government should tell us in the budget statement how it is going to solve that problem."

Meanwhile, an economist and executive director of the Center for Policy Analysis, Joe Abbey, on Monday cautioned the government to be careful of its spending in 2012 since the country would be going for a general election towards the end of the year.

He noted that there would be enormous pressure on the government to spend more with regard to infrastructure and other expenditure so as to attract votes to be maintained in power.

Joe Abbey emphasized that the macroeconomic gains of the country could be thrown overboard if the government were not able to put in the modalities to ensure the sustainability of the present economic gains.

In the context that the 2011 bueget was presented under the theme "Stimulation growth and Job creation budget", it appeared that the government economic policy for 2012 would look at how to improve on this by creating more jobs and also bringing down the budget deficit.

The presentation of the budget statement before the New Year has become a permanent feature in recent years in the West African country.