350,000 Ghanaians employed in public sector in two years - Bawumia

Despite complains of high unemployment rate in the country, Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government has employed 350,000 Ghanaians in the public sector in two years.

According to Dr Bawumia the government has given clearance for people to be recruited as nurses, teachers, at the forestry commission and security services.

Speaking at the launch of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) Job Centre at the Bank of Ghana Auditorium at the University of Ghana in Accra on Wednesday, 2 October 2019, Dr Bawumia said: “We’ve implemented a Nations Builders Corps NABCO which has employed 100,000 graduates who otherwise would have been sitting at home and this is a step in building the job skills of our graduates to be absorbed into the work force.

“The available data shows that recruitment and financial clearances for the security services, nurses, teachers, forestry and NABCO and so on, the last two years alone, we’ve employed 350,000 people in the public sector.”

Dr Bawumia added that the government has resolved to help train nurses by restoring nursing training allowances, restoring teacher training allowances and abolishing the fees for postgraduate medical training.

The Vice-President further noted that the government recognises that the public sector alone cannot absorb all the unemployed youth and, therefore, the Akufo-Addo-led administration will rely on the private sector.

“This means that we have to improve the business environment. Fundamentally, we have to reduce the cost of doing business and government has been on this particular path in the last couple of years and we’ve done a number of things to reduce the cost of doing business,” he said.