His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, the former president has noted that to reduce the burden of unemployment, this government has a unique opportunity in the 2022 Budget Statement to lessen the tax burden on small and medium scale businesses.
He said they must be allowed to grow to become more innovative and expand their employment generation capacity.
Mr. John Mahama said this in Accra during a public Lecture dubbed “ThankGhana”.
The former president said “While I am aware of the tempting desire for the government to amass massive revenues for their un-tempered consumption-driven appetite, I need to caution that we must not kill the hen that lays the golden egg, in this process. It has become evident that the current approach in public financial management has failed and needs to be reconsidered. It has also become evident that the private sector needs support to help resolve the troubling levels of joblessness.”
According to him, Ghanaian companies have proven that when they are given the needed push they will thrive, flourish and employ more. “We tried it with the $20 million injections in Entrance Pharmaceuticals (Tobinco), Ernest Chemists, Dannex, DanAdams, and Kinapharma to expand production and provide jobs. It worked. Such a stimulus package to viable Ghanaian entities in targeted sectors can be adopted under the current circumstances to induce growth and enhance the employment generation capacity of the selected firms.”
He said Unemployment has truly become a national security crisis.
“Here too, the government’s approach has been one of nonchalance and the bandying about of dubious employment creation figures. This has been coupled with ad-hoc and unsustainable measures that have led to the throwing back onto the street of tens of thousands of NABCO recruits with virtually no hope of finding sustainable employment.
At the core of our message to the people of Ghana in 2020 were jobs, because the unemployment issue was staggering. And the youth bulge has surely become a major threat to our country. From all the pillars of our policy planks in the People’s Manifesto – Infrastructure for Growth, Fixing the Economy, Tax cuts for jobs, developing a Digitally Functional Economy among others, our focus was on Jobs and Prosperity for all.”
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com/Kofi Atakora
