The Minority in Parliament has criticised President John Dramani Mahama for the mass dismissal of public sector workers employed by the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.
The leader of the Minority caucus Mr. Alexander Afenyo-Markin who is also the Member of Parliament for Effutu said Mr. Mahama will go down in history as the President who dismissed more public sector employees within the first 100 days of his presidency.
Speaking in Parliament in reaction to the message on the state of the nation delivered by the President, the Minority leader reminded Mr. Mahama about the worrying concerns being expressed by the Ghanaian youth.
“On the streets of Accra today, the youth of the country are saying that ‘Mahama baako, termination bebree’ (One Mahama, many terminations of jobs).”
It would be recalled that the Chief of Staff Mr. Julius Debrah, issued a directive in January to all state agencies and institutions to suspend the employment of all workers hired after 7 December.
Subsequently, many public sector agencies have either withdrawn or suspended the employment of workers, some of whom were recruited as far back as September 2024.
The most affected areas include health and, education sectors of the economy, National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP), the Bank of Ghana, and the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL).
Presenting the message on the state of the nation yesterday, President Mahama lamented the high rate of unemployment in Ghana.
Crucially, the president failed to acknowledge that the mass dismissal of the public sector workers by his less two months old administration added to the already troubling rate of unemployment rate in the country.
The Members of the Minority, who wore black to Parliament yesterday as a sign of solidarity with the workers who have lost their jobs, slammed the President for dismissing workers on one hand while lamenting unemployment on the other.
Failed campaign promise
Minority leader Afenyo-Markin also criticised the President for failing to fulfil his campaign promise of appointing 30% of women to his Cabinet.
He stated that although the National Democratic Congress (NDC) pledged to reserve 30% of Cabinet appointments for women, only two out of the 19 appointed members, representing less than 10%, are women.
Mr. Afenyo-Markin expressed concerns over the rate at which the President is breaking his campaign promises within less than 100 days of his presidency.
Lamentation president
The Minority leader also criticised President Mahama for engaging in what he described as ‘lamentations’ that the economy has been badly managed instead of getting to work.
Mr. Afenyo-Markin stated that the President spent his entire address lamenting the country’s situation, without even acknowledging the progress made in the last eight years.
“The President is engaged in the usual lamentation. He packaged it in a language as though we have a new beginning. Mr. Speaker if the President has any concerns, his duty is to fix it,” he stated.
The Minority leader questioned how an economy described in such terms by the President could still fulfil all statutory payments, including the payment of arrears to school feeding caterers and suppliers of food items to schools, increase public sector base salaries by 25% and 30% in some cases, support key programmes such as the Free Senior High School (SHS), and keep the lights on for eight years without experiencing ‘dumsor’.
