GOVERNMENT ON COURSE WITH JOB CREATION AGENDA 1st May, 2018
The
Upper East Regional Minister, Mr. Rockson A. Bukari has praised President Nana
Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo for the successful launch of the Nation Builders Corps
saying the programme is directly in tandem with the government’s job creation
agenda.
The Minister who was speaking at the 2018 celebrations of
International Workers’ Day, added that soon after launch, opportunities were
opened to the numerous youth in Ghana to go online and register under the
various modules of the programme. He said if the criteria for recruitment were
met, some of these youth will be engaged under modules such as Heal Ghana,
Civic Ghana, Revenue Ghana and Teach Ghana among others. He disclosed that an
aggregate of about 100,000 graduate youth were targeted to be absorbed into the
programme in 2018.
Mr. Bukari stated that Government was sure that if all the
productive energies of the country’s people especially, the youth were
mobilised, its ambition of a Ghana beyond aid would be achievable within the
shortest possible time. As part of efforts towards that goal therefore,
government had initiated moves such as the National Identification, the
National Digital Property Addressing System among others to formalise the
economy.
He also revealed that a five-year skills development
programme had been approved by cabinet for implementation targeted at equipping
public and civil servants with the requisite know-how to increase productive.
This programme will also restructure the various sectors of the economy and
position them to conform to modern standards and by so doing, boost their
output.
The Minister commended Organised Labour for its support to
government in delivering its mandate to the people over the past one year. He
pledged that just as government and stakeholders were able to discuss and fix
the 2018 Minimum Wage ahead of time, it had resolved to also work on
determining that of 2019 in good time. Meanwhile, he said government was poised
to fix the challenges on the labour front ranging from productivity to
discipline and integrity.
In his welcome address, the Bongo District Chief Executive,
Mr. Peter Ayinbisa Ayamga whose district hosted this year’s celebrations,
called on the joyous workers to use the day as reminder of the efforts of the
visionary founding fathers of trade unionism in the country. He said it was the
turn of the workers of today to also contribute positively to the survival of
the unions as well work to enhance their relationship with government in the
coming years.
Mr. Ayamga announced with joy that, the Ghana Tourism
Authority recently adjudged the Bongo District as the most peaceful district in
the Upper East Region and therefore called on investors both within and outside
Ghana to come and do business in his district. He mentioned the huge rock deposits
in the district, clay deposits and the Zorkor dimension stones as natural
resources worth investing in. He also cited the Vea dam recreational premises
and the Apasitanga footprint site as a few of the tourism attractions in the
district.
Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress [TUC], Dr. Yaw
Baah in a speech read for him noted that out of nearly 13 million Ghanaians who
were eligible to work, only two million had jobs that could be described as
decent. Meanwhile, about 11 million Ghanaians were working under very
precarious conditions without any better hope for the future.
Dr. Baah further noted that even the few lucky ones that were
in some form of decent employment, were frequently threatened with redundancy
exercises and lay-offs. He said for instance in 2015, a mass redundancy
exercise at AngloGold Ashanti Obuasi Mines affected over 5,000 mine workers.
Also in March 2018, there was another mass redundancy exercise at Gold Fields
Ghana Limited, Tarkwa during which over 2,000 workers were sent home. He noted
that sadly, those that protested were man-handled by military and police
personnel.
Commenting on the theme for this year’s celebrations
“Sustainable Development Goals and Decent Work; The Role of Social Partners”,
the Secretary General said the purpose of the theme was to drum home the fact
that, a strong social partnership charactarised by mutual trust and respect can
achieve a lot for all stakeholders.
He called on government to ratify the International Labour
Organisation’s [ILO] Convention 158 concerning termination of employment and to
also review the Labour Act 2003 [Act 651] which will both give adequate
protection to the Ghanaian employee. According to him, Organised Labour held a
strong view that the unenviable unemployment situation in Ghana could largely
be attributed to policy failure. He noted that over the last three decades,
Ghana had religiously implemented free market capitalist policies and
programmes sponsored by the IMF and that, these had a negative toll on the
Ghanaian economy. He therefore pledged the support of Organised Labour to the
Government in ending the current IMF programme this year.
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