Give us practical job creation steps, not rhetoric –TUC tells government

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has asked the government to outline practical steps for job creation in its 2018 Budget proposal to Parliament.

According to the TUC, the greatest challenge facing the national economy was how to create decent jobs for the millions desperately seeking jobs.

Therefore, the union said, it expected the 2018 Budget Statement to address that challenge in a more practical manner beyond the rhetoric.

The Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, is expected to present the government’s 2018 Budget and Economic Policy Statement to Parliament on November 15, 2017.

Proposal for budget

In a press statement issued on Tuesday by the TUC outlining its position on the economy and proposals for the government’s consideration in the 2018 budget, the union said the greatest challenge now was how to create decent jobs.

“We expect the 2018 budget statement to address this challenge in a more practical manner beyond the rhetoric. Stabilisation is necessary but not sufficient to deal with the employment challenge.

“There is the need to get the economy on a higher and sustained growth path that creates decent employment. A disaggregation of current growth figures shows that economic growth is driven, primarily, by oil and gas and mining. These sectors cannot be relied upon to address the employment challenge,” it said.

Commendation

While commending the government for largely achieving its 2017 targets of stabilising the economy, although some level of fragility was still outstanding, the labour movement said stabilisation was not sufficient to deal with the employment challenge.

“There is the need to get the economy on a higher and sustained growth path that creates decent employment. A disaggregation of current growth figures shows that economic growth is driven, primarily, by oil and gas, and mining. These sectors cannot be relied upon to address the employment challenge,” it said.

The TUC said resources from natural resources should be used to support other sectors that had the potential to create a large number of decent jobs.

“In our previous submissions, we have expressed support for government initiatives such as the one-district, one factory, the Planting for Food and Jobs, among others, intended to create employment. These initiatives will help grow agriculture and manufacturing,” it said.

It said the initiatives could not be successful unless fundamental changes were made in the economic policies and that investors in the factories would first think of markets for their products.

Other specific issues the TUC wanted the government to address included economic growth, salaries, pensions and labour administration.

Review trade policy

The statement said a review of the trade policy would go a long way to support the one-district, one-factory initiative of the government and help create jobs.

“It is also important that Ghana works with other West African countries to secure West African markets for our industrial ambitions. That is why Ghana should proceed with great caution in respect of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). Any unilateral action will undermine our interest in the sub-regional market.

“Other issues that need to be addressed in support of employment creation include lending rates,” the labour movement said.

It said the lending rates of commercial banks remained high, even as government borrowing on the domestic money market decreased and Treasury bill rates came down.

“Clearly, the traditional mechanism is not working. We expect the budget statement to show clearly how the government will bring down the cost of borrowing. It will be extremely difficult to create decent jobs in large numbers if the cost of borrowing remains so high,” it said.

SSPP

Touching on earnings, the TUC said incomes remained too low in Ghana, even by sub-regional standards, and that the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP) boosted public service pay in the first three years of its implementation, albeit from a low base.

Pensions

On pensions, it said for a very long time Ghana had been grappling with low pensions, as a very large proportion of pensioners subsisted on a minimum pension of GH¢276.

It underscored the need for the government to ensure that pension funds were managed efficiently and expressed concern over recent developments at the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), saying the situation did not inspire confidence.

“Obviously, there is the need to reform SSNIT to rescue it from the undue influence of government and party politics. The reforms should be designed to ensure that SSNIT focuses its attention exclusively on improving benefits for pensioners. Our proposals for reforms of SSNIT will be submitted to the government shortly,” the statement said.