Gov’t Has No Jobs For You …Finance Minister tells graduates

Graduates from the various tertiary institutions must be looking anywhere else but the government, for jobs according to Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, who delivered the bad news to graduating students of the University of Professional Studies in Accra.

“The future for you regarding jobs is the most important thing for you at this stage, and we have gone through a period when most people look for a job from government or state institutions, but that payroll is full,” Ofori-Atta told the bemused students.

“I can tell you that because we are spending about 60 percent of our revenue on remunerating some 650,000 people, and that is not sustainable.”

According to Mr. Ofori-Atta, graduates will do well to learn and apply entrepreneurial skills in the real-life when they graduate because there is just is no longer space for more employment in the public sector.

He said the government cannot create new employment spaces because already, the national payroll takes some 60% of national revenue annually.

Ofori-Atta said it is not the government’s responsibility to employ people but to create an enabling environment for the people to create jobs for themselves.

The Akufo-Addo government has racked up notoriety as one of the most nepotistic in the history of governance in Ghana with family members and friends occupying key facets of government and heading public institutions.

While being aware that the public sector was cash-strapped, the Akufo Addo administration in 2020 and 2021 increased the budget of the presidency by over 200% and was proposing to pay the First Lady and Second Lady outrageous salaries on the same scale as cabinet ministers.

The inconsistency between the profligate spending of the Akufo Addo administration and the signals from the Finance Minister has peeved critics who question the selectiveness of the government.