Prez Mahama outlines government plans on job creation

President John Dramani Mahama on Monday outlined government’s plans to create more jobs for the teeming youth in the coming years.

He said apart from the public sector recruitment, government was also introducing Youth and Job Enterprises centres, stimulus package, Small and Medium Enterprise Incubator Project and the revamping of defunct enterprises with partnership with the private sector.

President Mahama outlined these plans when he met the public services Joint Standing Negotiating Committee stakeholders in labour at the Castle, Osu. President Mahama commended all the stakeholders in the successful implementation of the single spine salary structure and gave the assurance that others would be placed on the scheme in the coming months.

“So far a total of 410,000 workers had already been placed on the new salary structure and I hope that in the not too long distance the last 1,590, representing 10 organizations, will also be placed on the scheme,” President Mahama emphasized.

The President explained that under the Youth and Job Enterprises, government would create centres, where the youth with skills would be financially supported to expand their businesses and also employ others in their enterprises.

He said under the stimulus package, government would identify and support giant enterprises to create job opportunities for more Ghanaian youth, while the revamping of the defunct enterprises would encourage partnership between government and the private sector.

Dr Kofi Asamoah, Secretary General of the Ghana Trades Union Congress, appealed to government to strengthen the Fair Wages Services Commission to enable them to put up measures that would ensure pay equity and living wages.

He said the pensioners for example had expressed dissatisfaction that government had over the years imposed trustees on them and appealed to government to review the trend to ensure peace and unity at the labour front.

The Secretary General hinted that organized labour would be tough in negotiating for the next minimum wage in view of the fact that the Members of Parliament and some staff at the Presidency had recently received phenomenal pay rises.