The Deputy Chief Executive Officer (DCEO) of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Hajia Abibata Shanni Mahama Zakariah has attributed the high unemployment rate in Ghana to the inability of most graduates from tertiary institutions to seek credible information about where and how they could receive support to start up their own small and medium scale businesses.
She said the graduates’ overreliance on Government for employment without rather becoming creative or originators of new Ghanaian businesses could only create discontentment among them, or make them become burdens on their families and society.
Presenting a paper on “The Cost of and Options in Financing Sustained Graduate Employment and Entrepreneurship†at the National Summit on Tertiary Education and Enterprise Development held at Koforidua in the Eastern Region, Hajia Abibata said that Government alone did not have the capacity to employ every graduate into the public sector but would continue to create opportunities for more business establishments by individual Ghanaians.
Indicating, “Already, the public sector wage bill continues to be the biggest threat to Government expenditure, as a recent analysis by the Graphic Business (GB) revealed that wages and salaries for public sector employees consume almost half of all taxes collected every year. In 2017, when tax revenue totaled 32.2 billion Ghana cedis, wages and salaries for public sector workers rose to 14.4 billion Ghana cedis, equivalent to 44.7 per cent of the year’s total taxesâ€.
She said that even though MASLOC previously had always been used as an electioneering tool and the only time MASLOC got money to disburse was when it was election year. “But the President of Nana Addo is different from past Presidents because he has demonstrated that MASLOC cannot only function during electioneering year. And as I speak now, 200 million Ghana cedis is being injected into MASLOC for people to benefit. And we have already disbursed so much especially with women who have benefited about 87 per cent of all our disbursementsâ€.
She thus encouraged the potential entrepreneurs to ignore the vile political gimmick perceptions about MASLOC and rather see it as a national facility for all Ghanaian citizens between the ages of 18 and 65 years.
According to her, instead of graduates waiting endlessly for non-existing government jobs, they could equally take a bold step to venture into businesses with support from organisations like MASLOC and other agencies.
Hajia Abibata advised them to form groups or apply to MASLOC as individuals for loans to establish their own businesses and become employers of employees.
She pointed out that, Government has also introduced NaBCO which has recruited close to 100,000 graduates in Ghana, given out 100 million dollars to support 3,000 entrepreneurs in the country to startup businesses through the Ministry for Business Development, and in 2018, a total of 1,350 entrepreneurs across the nation benefited from government’s financial support package to grow their businesses. They received amounts ranging from GH¢10,000.00 to GH¢100,000.00, under the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan’s (NEIP) Presidential Business Support Programme.
Hajia Abibata also mentioned the Planting for Food and Jobs programme and several financial allocations for entrepreneur developments under Ministries of Business Development, Special Initiatives and Employment and Labour Relations as avenues for youth entrepreneurial development.
“Government is fully aware of the challenges posed by the monster called unemployment especially among Ghanaian graduates and has therefore found it expedient to create more opportunities for our young people to have access to capitals to better their lives or create their own world of business. What our youth need now is to find out information about those support facilities and applyâ€.
The Deputy MASLOC CEO who is also 2020 NPP Parliamentary Aspirant for Yendi Constituency did not understand why Ghana’s youth unemployment appears higher among the educated than the less educated persons.
Meanwhile, according to the Labour Force Survey report 2017, there are over 1.2 million persons from 15 years and older estimated to be unemployed in Ghana. This represents a total unemployment rate of 11.9 per cent. Out of the number of unemployed persons, about 714,916 are females, representing 57.2 per cent and 535,997 for males representing 42.8 per cent.
Currently, the labour market is characterized by the dominance of the private informal sector, contrary to what was observed in the past where agriculture and related activities were the major employers of the working population in Ghana.
According to the Labour Force Survey report 4.2 million persons, representing 52.5% of the currently employed are engaged in the private informal sector.
Agricultural businesses engaged 2.1 million of those in current employment.
, December 11, 2019