Public Sector Is Not Choked, Gov’t Just Cannot Pay …Prof. Gatsi

Dean of the School of Finance at the University of Cape Coast, Prof. John Gatsi, has countered Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta’s claim that government cannot employ new university graduates because the public sector is choked.

In a write-up, Prof. Gatsi who is also a lawyer points out that the problem is not that the public sector is choked with a glut of workers, but that the government simply does not have the financial muscle to pay new employees.

“The truth is that a proper analysis of the public sector spaces will reveal thousands of spaces in health, education, police service, immigration, agriculture extension services, district and municipal assemblies just to mention a few for Ghanaians. So the public sector is not actually choked, it is rather the inability of the government to raise the required revenue to employ,” Prof. Gatsi wrote.

“Jobs that require ten people to do cannot be done effectively by two people. This is why we have a widespread productivity deficit. Another serious issue is a well-managed economy should be creating continuous economic opportunities for all the levels of the country’s demography.”

Recently, at the graduation ceremony of the University of Professional Studies (UPSA), the Minister of Finance whose outfit issues financial clearance, explained that the jubilant graduates should not be hoping for employment in the public sector because there are no vacancies and that they should take to entrepreneurship. 

He further explained that the job of the government is to create an enabling environment for them to create and establish themselves.

The statement has since been generating controversies with many fearing the government is admitting it has lost in the matter of its key duty to create jobs.

According to Prof. Gatsi, the government’s inability to pay is due to many bad governance practices that have been culturalized over the years, including growth without jobs.

“When we accepted the concept of jobless growth without doing anything about it , how do we expect the economy to give us the jobs? The economy is about livelihood and livelihood is glued to jobs. Speaking away an important product of economic management is frustrating news to the youth,” the economist diagnosed the problem.

Prof. Gatsi also said the Finance Minister’s advice to school graduates to start their own businesses is fanciful, simplistic, and unrealistic.

“The reality is over 97% of these graduates remain job seekers and with the 3% that may be involved in entrepreneurial trials 2% May survive over a 5year period and 1% will grow to become giants. Thus, we need to support entrepreneurial success and survival with good access to cheaper fuel, cheaper energy, low and competitive interest rates, reliable marketing architecture, availability of startup funds to support entrepreneurship at the early stages and Investment in business incubators with serious staffing and equipment in well mapped out towns,” he said.

 “It is frustrating to tell over 100,000 new graduates per year to take entrepreneurship as an alternative to jobs in the economy. That sounds sweet when reviewing academic literature but this is definitely not an easy path.”

The Dean of the UCC School of Finance charged the government to put in place measures to measure entrepreneurial outcomes in the country so that it can inform their policies on entrepreneurship.