The President of policy think-tank IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe has revealed that government is struggling to pay workers in the public sector.
“It appears to me that we’ve reached that stage that we have to say that the state as an entity has no longer got the ability in terms of finances to take care of everybody that it employs. This is a very crucial matter. The state is piling too much responsibility at the centre trying to take care of everybody working the public sector,” he added.
[contextly_sidebar id=”nCLLnADoSWUYYvLWhvdqHZzGZVoADfhl”]He was commenting on the plight of the 91 junior doctors who have worked for the past 11 months without pay as well as other public sector workers in the country.
Several government workers have in recent times embarked on strikes to demand better working conditions.
Speaking on Citi FM’s News and Analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday, Franklin Cudjoe insisted government must decentralise governance, saying it is the only way to relieve the huge burden on it [government].
“All civilized progressive nations around the world are moving to the decentralization of governance. Decentralization in terms of management of resources, in this case, human resources as well. Whilst the state continues to recruit a lot more people and does not necessarily have the commensurate power to generate enough revenues, because there aren’t enough economic activities to generate revenues to continue this pledge, it is important that we ask ourselves this crucial question, can the state continue to bare this single spine salary structure? It is a very difficult thing to do and I think when we keep on trying to bandage it, very soon we will be reaching the point where we will all break apart,” he opined.
Franklin Cudjoe further suggested that “If we really want to have a healthy citizenry, what government really has to do is to stop trying to be the captain planet for everybody’s life.”
“We had a constitutional amendment process, which said that as a matter of fact we should decentralise effectively by making sure that some semi-autonomous power should be given to the districts to take care of development…let people have some semblance of responsibility to themselves, so they can decide, the number of teachers, doctors, nurses that we want.”
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com