John Dramani Mahama of NDC fame has refuted claims by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) that gov’t payroll is full.
As in the best knowledge of Mahama, there are a bunch of human resource gaps to fill in the public sector.
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, recently told a gathering of young persons that the payroll was full hence they should start thinking of creating their own jobs.
He said that about 60% of the government’s revenue was already being paid as salaries to some 650,000 public sector workers.
“I disagree with the oft-repeated position that the public sector is full and has no room for more people. The Human Resource Gap (HR Gap) study we conducted on the public sector last year, revealed gaping shortages in specific segments of the public sector,” John Mahama said on Wednesday while delivering a public lecture to climax his ‘Thank You’ tour.
“The Ghana Education Service and the Ghana Health Service have human resource gaps of almost 100,000 (98,650 actual) and more than 70,000 (76,795 actual) respectively. Similar gaps were also identified in the security services: Ghana Police Service – 35,020, Ghana National Fire Service – 30,136, Ghana Immigration Service – 3,522, and Ghana Prison Service – 7,925,” Mr Mahama claimed.
He added: “The time has come for the government to bite the bullet and take the bull by the horn. Many of these sectors can be made self-financing to improve the capacity to employ, once they are allowed to use portions of their Internally Generated Funds instead of depending solely on the consolidated fund.”
He said the government lacks the ability to create jobs saying the NDC had a plan in creating jobs.
“The NDC’s one million (Edwumapa) Jobs Creation Plan, the free TVET, and National Apprenticeship Programme as contained in our manifesto are still relevant and available for this government to draw on for implementation. If well implemented, we can create an average of 250,000 jobs every year for the youth of Ghana,” he noted.
