The Minority in Parliament has strongly criticised the 2025 budget statement and economic policy of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), particularly the job creation promises.
They described the possible jobs in the budget as “sakawa jobs,” implying the employment promises are unrealistic or fraudulent.
Addressing the media in response to the budget statement presented to Parliament by Finance Minister Dr Cassiel Ato Forson on Tuesday, 11th March, the minority spokesperson on Finance expressed their dissatisfaction with several aspects of the budget.
Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam who is also the immediate past Minister for Finance was particularly concerned about the government’s promises of job creation.
“On the matter of unemployment, the youth were looking forward to either high growth targets to create jobs or at the least government employment programs in the public service have been sorely disappointed.
“Unfortunately, neither of these were expressed in the budget. Instead in paragraph 478 of the policy document, the Government announces a net freeze on public sector hirings. Growth is also rather constrained to 4.4% YoY as against the NPPs 5.7% growth.
“If growth was expected to go higher there could have been hope that young people will even find jobs in an expanded economy through private sector. Despite the rhetoric, the facts are that the hope for jobs has been extinguished. There is no resetting here. Actually the situation will be getting worse. Is this the reason why the administration from the onset deliberately dismissed thousands of young people who had been properly recruited by the previous administration so as to create artificial vacancies to be used in recruiting some of the NDC youth? The Minority quizzed.
Misplaced priority
Dr. Amin Adam pointed out that while improving the job creation ecosystem is a problem, it is alarming how however the compensation budget of the office of Government machinery has ballooned from GHS327 million, to GHS2.7 billion.
“This is while the government claims to have hired less workers at the Presidency. It is only the NDC that hires less workers but compensation budgets balloon. Yet there is no room for youth jobs in the public services and constrained growth in the economy to absorb other unemployed youth.
There hope of a reset on the jobs agenda is fading,” Dr. Amin Adam bemoaned.
$10 billion ‘Big Push’ deception
The Minority also expressed worry about President John Mahama’s ambitious policy of $10 billion ‘Big Push’ to stimulate economic growth.
The Minority noted that despite frequent references to the US$10 billion target, only US$800 million has been allocated in the budget for the project.
