NPP government over promised and is under delivering - Spio Garbrah

A former Minister of Trade and Industry under in the Mahama administration, Dr. Ekwow Spio Garbrah has observed that the current New Patriotic Party (NPP) government over promised and is currently under delivering.

He said the party cannot say it does not have the financial muscle to employ more persons into the public sector when it rode on same promises to win power in 2016.

“You scrapped taxes and others …..How do you expect to pay public sector workers? They were over promising and now they are under delivering”, he revealed on Okay FM.

His comments were in response to a hint by the Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Marfo at the National Economic Forum that the state has no capacity engage more employees in the public sector because there are no resources to pay them.

“You reduce taxes which you are supposed to use in employing them. Even though people were happy there were tax cuts, employment will go down because there are no resources. It is therefore not surprising that he has asked public sector workers not to dream of employment in that sector. All these are indicative of the fact that the economy is in disarray”, he added.

According to him, there was no basis in also employing 110 ministers if same amount they are giving them as salaries and others entitlements could be used to employ thousands of Ghanaians into the public sector.

“Reduction in government employment has a direct impact on the private sector. Taxes are a reasonably guaranteed source of government revenue for employment but when these taxes have been scrapped, no government can embark of developmental projects in such instances. That is the bane of contention….what we are seeing now is an over promising and under delivering government. They should not have employed 110 ministers if they knew the country was constraint in terms of resources”, he reiterated.