Senior Minister Mr. Yaw Osafo Maafo has warned that government will no longer employ public servants and maybe forced to lay some off because the public sector is choked.

The Senior Minister was speaking at the 2017 Ghana Economic Forum on Monday where he said, “the public sector is full in terms of employment [and] we can’t employ anybody in the public sector.” Ghana’s economy is currently in a mess stressed that the public service was“full” and “perhaps we may have to even lay some [workers] off.”

According to him, Ghana currently has 20 public and 75 private universities and that it will be very difficult to employ students from the tertiary institutions saying this situation could be averted “if the private sector grows, if the private sector expands, if the private sector becomes prosperous.”

He urged industry leaders, and the business community to partner government to establish and furnish tertiary institutions with state of the art laboratories to enable them train more researches and engineers for the country adding that “if we do not get our minds set into this direction, we are heading for trouble as a country.”

Government he announced will focus on four thematic areas including improving Ghana’s micro economic stability, massive infrastructure development, accelerated industrial development and agriculture transformation.

“These four thematic areas should be able to change the complete face of our economy and I’m sure with your support – captains of industry, the banks, we should be able to accomplish this as a cooperative effort for the sake of Ghana. Let us think about future generations. This generation should lay forever a foundation that will make Ghana a centre of industry in West Africa,” he added.

“What are we doing to domesticate that production? Our location in West Africa is even central; all these should speak to us. Let us resolve to get the economy resolved once and for all. Let us remove this tag of irreversiblity on our head that Ghana will do well for some time and later we reverse to the bottom then we climb again to the top that cannot do. Once we set in motion and moving we should make it impossible for any government to reverse that motion. And that is why we are looking at the fiscal responsibility law, so you can’t come and run the deficit anyhow. There should be a law restricting you,” he concluded.