Mr Isaac Adongo, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolgatanga Central, has called for sustainable solution to unemployment in the country.
He said there were no opportunities for employment in the public sector for graduates and “so it is more important for us at this point in time to collectively find very good solutions to deal with the problem of unemployment before it gets out of hand.”
Mr Adongo said this when he addressed fresh students of the Bolgatanga Technical University’s Chapter of the Tertiary Education Institution Network (TEIN) of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) organised by the Regional youth wing at Sumbrungu in the Upper East Region.
He said the introduction of technical education in Ghana was meant to address the problem of unemployment but that had not been realised.
Mr Adongo said in the recent mid-year budget review, government indicated it would create one million jobs within three years without telling Ghanaians where the jobs would come from.
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“The honest truth is that our public sector today employs about 700,000 people… In addition to that, the monies that we are borrowing now take about 91 per cent of our tax revenues just to service those public debts,’’ he said.
“If government is struggling to pay 700,000 people, how would it be able to pay one million people? …Clearly, we must find a sustainable solution to deal with the unemployment problem.”
Mr Adongo said the private sector across the world had demonstrated a better track record of providing sustainable jobs than the public sector as it could employ in millions while the public sector employed in thousands.
“Unfortunately, the private sector works by looking at the actions of government in terms of creating uncertainties and increasing risks in the economy and we presently have the highest levels of uncertainties and risks for the private business sector,” he said.
Mr Adongo said that was reflective in the records of the Bank of Ghana as reported in the last summary of the economic and financial data, which showed that non-performing loans increased from 15 per cent to 17 per cent, a sign of people not being able to pay back their loans.
He called on government to create a conducive environment for the private sector to thrive to enable it to employ more of the youth.
