Freeze on public sector employment unjustifiable

What are the NDC's anti recession measures? The answer is none, or rather “keeping young graduates out of work for at least two years.” You may not believe it but that is true.

Thanks to a $300million loan from the International Development Association, an offshoot of the World Bank, the government of Ghana would not be employing Administrators, Engineers, Accountants, Journalists, Lawyers and other white, black, pink or blue colour employees except teachers, doctors and nurses.

Whilst governments in the West are rescuing failed private sector businesses and creating more new jobs, a Western bank has asked our government to keep our people out of work. Even though this kind of conditionality is nothing new, I am aghast by the IDA's conditionality. In the UK for example, Gordon Brown promised 100,000 new jobs though the Tories have contested the figures; and Obama promised 6000000 new jobs for Americans this summer, a figure which has also been contested as unachievable by his critics.

Our economies are incomparable but my point is, Ghana's government cannot justify agreeing to a loan condition to freeze public sector employment for about two years. It is indefensible and risky. We cannot accept a loan condition that seeks to impoverish families and put our young graduates who have the misfortune of not finding jobs in the private sector or going abroad in a state of hopelessness. It would alienate voters and might cost us an election.

About twenty thousand estimated graduates would have to wait till 2010 for an opportunity to work in Ghana's public service. In a time like now, when private institutions are folding up or downsizing its personnel because of a difficulty to stay afloat as a result of the recession, one would expect government to provide opportunities for people who may be out of job.

The questions on the minds of graduate students is how quickly they can get jobs? So how quickly can government create jobs? And how many jobs would be available and over what period? These are questions our politicians are not addressing.

Times are really very hard for everyone globally, and that is why Ghana's government cannot behave like its opponents. I haven't heard a single articulate plan on what we want to do to ameliorate the suffering of those who may be affected by the decision not to employ new personnel into the public sector. Our country's ruling party has socialist leanings and that is why we must compel it to abide by those principles.The government has a duty to provide employment for our youths and not to defer employment.

I don't know what kind of media strategy the presidency is running but there seems to be a lot of confusion. An issue that threatens the livelihood of young Ghanaians is serious enough for His Excellency President Mills to addresses the nation. Yet no word from the President, no statement from the employment minister and staff are incoherent about what measures are in place to relax the suffering of our unemployed compatriots. I am filled with frustration at governments failure to recognize the need to speak to Ghanaians about the scale of our country's unemployment situation and to talk us through mechanisms being put in place to tackle the difficulty.

I must state that there is indeed an urgent need to reform the public sector which is by all account quite a mess. But we cannot accept such a policy decision and expect to find favor with Ghanaians. We would not be able to control the scourge of rising unemployment in four years. It would put the government under a lot of strain, inevitable disaffection but most importantly cost people their source of livelihood. We are going to be faced with an overwhelming number of jobless graduates by implementing this policy.

There's nothing new about the machinations of the World Bank and its umbrella institutions line the IDA, but what I find most amazing about the IDA is that it was set up ostensibly to help the so called “worlds poorest countries.” Since its formation in 1960, the IDA give loans and grants without taking interest with the view to reducing poverty and boosting economic growth. Underneath this smokescreen is an attempt to keep poor people down. These kinds of loans do not improve our course as a developing nation and it is about time we developed ingenuous measures of generating resources internally.

There are so many Ingenuous Ghanaians at home and abroad; the likes of Prof. Agyemang Badu Akorsah and Professor Aheto who have some fine suggestions on how to do things. We have to incorporate the views of such personalities even if they do not belong to our party. Bottom-line is the general good of all Ghanaians. The time has come for us to depend on the ingenuity of our people to solve our problem and not depend on the World Bank and IMF which have proved unhelpful over the years. As founder Jerry Rawlings put it “ we cannot afford to fail Ghanaians.” The NDC indeed cannot afford to fail Ghanaians.

RAS MUBARAK
Broadcaster,Publicist and member of NDC

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