Minister calls for national discourse on new work technologies

Mr Ignatius Baffour Awuah, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, has stressed the need for a national dialogue on emerging technologies to effect changes in the way people live and work.

He said disruptive technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), Robotics, Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (IT), were currently defining the future of work and Ghana must embrace this in order to survive in the future.

Mr Awuah said public and private players in the economy must combine efforts for a holistic development of the national technological infrastructure to improve livelihoods.

The Minister was addressing the 10th Quadrennial Delegates’ Conference of the Public Services Workers Union (PSWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Kumasi.

The three-day conference was on the theme: “PSWU @ 60: Promoting Quality Public Service Delivery and National Development - Setting the Agenda for Alternatives.”

Mr Awuah said Ghana needed to equip its youth with the requisite skills and knowledge to take advantage of new technologies for enterprise development.

He added that the country could obtain targets in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on condition that it provided innovations in the systems, processes and procedures of work in all sectors.

“We are required to look beyond existing paradigms towards the future and put in place the foundational structures that would bring the vision to fruition,” he said.

He commended PSWU for delivering quality public services in the last 60 years and said it was time the workers positioned themselves in the scheme of things for effective and efficient utilisation of national resources.

Dr Yaw Baah, the General Secretary of TUC, said advancement in technology was making the future of work uncertain, hence workers’ unions must adopt new approaches in their dealings with social partners.

He said social dialogue and partnerships were now the greatest tools to deal with issues confronting workers and called on the PSWU to build stronger partnerships to help ensure its sustenance in the next 60 years.

Mr Bernard Adjei, the Acting General Secretary of PSWU, expressed concern about politicisation in the Public Service and said that could affect productivity and quality service delivery.