Considering its devastating consequences, equating joblessness to a demon which needs to be exorcised is undoubtedly justifiable. The need to exorcise this age-old demon – joblessness, or better still unemployment – has perhaps received attention now than any other time in the history of the world.
In the recent elections of the United States, amidst sensitive issues like immigration, education and deficit, job creation discussions took centre stage. The former secretary of state and candidate of the Democrats, Hillary Clinton, prioritized job creation in her fist- term -to -do- list which she labeled a “100 days job plan”. At the heart of this plan was an agenda to revitalize the employment market by making the largest investment in good paying jobs since world war ΙΙ. The key elements of her 100 days job plan agenda included making bold investments in America’s infrastructure, industry and manufacturing; cutting taxes and reducing red tapes to engineer small business growth.
Business man, real estate mogul and President elect, Donald Trump, equally proffered a great job creation policy. Most analysts believe his victory was largely propelled by his job creation mantra. Trump promised to be the ‘greatest job president that God ever created’. Exit polls conducted by Fox during the elections suggested that 65 percent of voters agreed with Trump’s assertion that international trade cost jobs. Overall, Trump’s commitment was to create 25 million new jobs over the next decade.
I revert home to focus on the essence of this article. Essentially, I seek to analyse efforts by the two main political parties – NPP and NDC – aimed at exorcising this age-old demon (unemployment).
A recent report by the World Bank on employment revealed that about 48 percent of Ghanaian youth are jobless. This report came at a time when the government’s Communication Ministry had released a report claiming to have created 600,000 jobs. The Ministry’s report also emphasized that 96,000 people had also been empowered to create their own jobs. Though these job creation figures sound robust, they appear to be a drop in the ocean considering the magnitude of the unemployment situation depicted by the World Bank figures. Again, there are others who will certainly take job creation figures from government with a pinch of salt. This stance is justifiable considering the fact that similar job creation figures churned out by the Ministry of Communication in the past were dismissed by the sector minister for Employment.
In the face of Ghana’s alarming unemployment situation, it will be disingenuous to discount the various job creation attempts by the NDC government. The much touted capital investment in infrastructure has certainly created some casual jobs. Again, GYIDA in spite of its numerous corruption scandals has certainly created jobs. Another GYIDA related agency – YES, is deemed to have created some significant jobs. These direct government interventions, coupled with many others highlighted in the NDC’s 2016 manifesto are direct investment meant to create jobs.
Through similar interventions the NPP equally created divers jobs. The youth employment initiative, without doubt, is the brainchild of the NPP. Equally the NPP embarked on various infrastructural projects that obviously created jobs.
In all of these job creation attempts, what appears missing is a deliberate policy to convert the nation’s raw materials into finished goods – industrialization – which in my view is the panacea to unemployment. Admittedly, the current government has made strides at industrialization. However, considering the enormity of the unemployment situation the poor approach towards the execution of industrialization programmes leaves much to be desired. The Komenda sugar factory for instance was shut down for maintenance barely a month after it was commissioned. The Ayensu starch factory and Aveyime rice projects started by the Kuffour administration are on its knees for mysterious reasons.
Industrialization is obviously the greatest pillar in the quest to exorcise this demon of old-unemployment. The perennial export of our raw materials since independence in the face of the nations overwhelming unemployment situation is only a bastardization of our educational prowess. With the numerous resources at our disposal, turning Ghana into an industrial hub to engineer job creation is not beyond our reach. To this end, the view of the NPP on industrialization ought to be endorsed by all well wishers of our beloved country. Building a factory in each district of our country is a sine qua non for job creation.
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