Provide Evidence to 1m Jobs Claim – ASEPA to Govt

The Alliance for Social Equity & Public Accountability (ASEPA) has called on government to substantiate claims by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, that 1,096,404million jobs has been created since January 2017.

The Executive Secretary of ASEPA, Mensah Thompson, said in a statement on Wednesday, 2 May 2018 that, “even though we think the number is quite ambiguous as there cannot be even more than 10,000 new jobs in the system, according to unofficial sources, it is very important that we give the Employment Minister and government the opportunity to provide further data on these supposed 1million jobs created.”

He added that: “We would expect that the data is well captured in an explanatory manner that informs readers adequately on the type of jobs created, the remuneration range, duration of the job and the industry the job belongs to”.

The policy institute further noted that, “not just for civil society and policy analysts to verify the claims of government, but also provide enough basis for thorough analysis of government’s commitment to solving the unemployment situation in the country that has become a national security problem”.

Speaking at the launch of the Nation Builders Corps in Kumasi, Ashanti Region, on May Day, where the president launched the job creation intervention, Mr Baffour-Awuah said several interventions made by the Akufo-Addo government between January 2017 and March 2018, resulted in the creation of 1,096,404 jobs.

According to him, the number is minus the jobs created in the informal sector.

Below is the full statement by ASEPA:

PROVIDE PROOF OF 1MILLION JOBS CLAIM OR APOLOGISE TO GHANAIANS, ASEPA TO EMPLOYMENT MINISTER

Yesterday the minister for Employment and Labour relations made quite a shocking claim that over 1million jobs have been created by government since 2017.

Even though we think the number is quite ambiguous as there cannot be even more than 10 000 new jobs in the system according to unofficial sources, it is very important that we give the employment minister and government the opportunity to provide further data on these supposed 1million jobs created.

We would expect that the data is well captured in an explanatory manner that informs readers adequately on the type of jobs created, the remuneration range, duration of the job and the industry the job belongs to.

We would also expect that government provide adequate data on beneficiaries of this over 1million jobs.
Non specifying biographic data like Age range of beneficiaries, educational background, employment history and skill sets would be very important for our assessment.

This information is very important not just for civil society and policy analyst to verify the claims of government but also provide enough basis for thorough analysis of government’s commitment to solving the unemployment situation in the country that has become a national security problem.

It is important that within the next three days the minister for employment would come out and provide the data relevant data as required.

If the minister cannot provide this data within the next three days then he must withdraw his statement and apologise to Ghanaians.

Government needs to be held accountable to its words, the credibility of government information must be safeguarded to avoid the citizenry loosing trust in government’s official communications.

We will continue to remind the minister about the data on employment and unemployment.
The minister promised us that the data will be ready in three months, now it is three months and we need the data most importantly because even granted that the minister’s claim of 1million jobs is true, we cannot make any meaningful analysis of this information when there is no existing data on employment.
So what we need now is not the minister telling us how many jobs he thinks he has created but a general data that adequately captures the employment situation and records of the country and that is more progressive.

We will therefore give government additional one month after failing on its own promise to provide the data in three months and we hope this time the minister will take stakeholders more seriously and heed to our call.

Signed:
Mensah Thompson
Executive Secretary-ASEPA

Cc.
Minister for Employment and Labour Relations
All Media House’s

Source: thePublisher