Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance Minister, has encouraged new graduates from various tertiary institutions to discover innovative ways to become entrepreneurs.
According to him, this is the only way to decrease the country’s growing unemployment rate.
He claims it will help decrease the government’s over-reliance on it for employment, as well as the load on the government’s payroll.
Mr. Ofori-Atta said during a graduation ceremony at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) that 60 percent of Ghana’s income is spent each month on paying wages to public sector employees.
“That payroll is full because we are spending some 60% of our revenue on remunerating some 650,000 people. That is not sustainable.”
He told the graduating students that: “…You have the skills set to be able to do what you have to do. Our responsibility as a government is to create the environment and the macro stability, currency stability and ensure that you have access to the relevant skills and financing.”
He also said that the government is restructuring its budget to concentrate on how to assist young people in creating their own jobs.
According to him, the government is doing this via programs such as the Ghana CARES program.
“This budget that we are going to be doing is going to really focus on the youth. We will have a programme in it looking at the youth and [their] demands and how we can structure… the Ghana Obaatanpa Programme [for the next two or three years] to ensure that the youth become their own bosses, and how to become entrepreneurs.”
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