Professor Godfred Bokpin, a professor of Finance at the University of Ghana Business School, has described the job creation and unemployment situation in the country as worrying and the initiative in job creation and employment unconvincing.
“The country is sitting on a time bomb as far as the unemployment rate keeps increasing because we are all passionate about job creation, unemployment is high among university graduates between 22 and 29, so we are using the productive aspect of our lives to look for jobs that do not exist,” he warned.
Prof. Bokpin stated that the initiative by the government was good but not really achievable.
His comments come after Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister of Finance announced the creation of a new initiative known as the ‘One Million Jobs Initiative’ to aggressively respond to the country’s needs, particularly in the areas of job creation and employment and informed Parliament that initiatives like the ¢100 billion Ghana CARES ‘Obaatanpa’ revitalisation programme would help address the unemployment menace.
Prof. Bokpin indicated that the government was right and had good intention to create one million jobs in the next three years adding, that “we have been hearing this for a long time now, check the 2014 to 2018 budgets, you will see, and who is tracking those numbers?”
He insisted that they were not accomplishments and the citizenry could not substitute good intentions for accomplishment and the government must employ decisive and bold actions to tackle the crisis which was a time bomb.
“Any recovery we are looking at today must seek to undo the effect that will create a just society, if we talk about all the issues and we do not back it with a concrete strategy with the necessary financial resources, people will still complete the university, be still out there and will be unemployed,” Prof. Bokpin cautioned. -myjoyonline.com
