Govt announces YouStart initiative to encourage entrepreneurship
Govt touts e-levy, says revenue will be used to solve unemployment
Minority opposes e-levy
North Tongu Member of Parliament(MP), Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has claimed that the government intends to engage the services of New Patriotic Party members in 2022 despite the finance minister’s comment that the government payroll is full.
Speaking at a graduation ceremony at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta urged graduates to venture into entrepreneurship as the government could not afford to put them on its wage bill anymore.
“That payroll is full because we are spending some 60% of our revenue on remunerating some 650,000 people. That is not sustainable,” he disclosed.
The minister further indicated to the graduating students that, “you have the skills set to be able to do what you have to do. Our responsibility as a government is to create the environment and the macro stability, currency stability and ensure that you have access to the relevant skills and financing”.
But in an opinion titled “Beyond The Obnoxious E-Levy, A Hard And Frank Look At Public Expenditure”, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa mentioned that the government was planning to clandestinely recruit its party apparatchiks under the Office of Government Machinery (OGM).
“The staff strength at the Office of Government Machinery is projected to increase again to 2,111 from 1,597 in 2021. (See page 273 of 2022 Budget). This is curious considering that Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta had only recently told the Ghanaian youth not to put their hopes in public sector jobs as the public sector is bloated. It seems to me that caution doesn’t apply to party apparatchiks who will be engaged in 2022 to occupy the 514 spaces specially created at the OGM for them. Such policy duplicity does not help the credibility of government and it doesn’t help government’s expenditure control either”, he chastised.
In 2017, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, who is now a Senior Presidential Advisor, also said the Ghanaian economy as it is cannot support new employment opportunities in the public sector as it is choked.
Giving hints of a possible downsizing in the public sector under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Programme, he said the government might consider laying off some workers in the public sector, according to online news portal graphic.com.gh.