Support private sector to absorb unemployed – Kufuor to gov’t

Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has called for support for Ghana’s private sector, describing it as an alternative in addressing the worrying unemployment situation in the country.

An estimated 300,000 graduates are said to be unemployed presently, a situation some analysts believe could worsen if concrete steps are not put in place to solve the problem.

[contextly_sidebar id=”c2JsCajbbsuculKHUGc2jTURe9hl7iNd”]According to Mr. Kufuor, the problem created by the freeze in public sector employment could be minimised if the private sector is provided with the needed support.

“In our current times when there is a freeze on public sector employment, the burden on providing gainful employment to our teeming youth falls squarely on the shoulders of the private sector.”

Mr. Kufuor who was speaking at a ceremony to mark the 5^th Anniversary of Ideal Finance Limited also admitted that successive governments have done little in creating a favourable business climate for the private sector to thrive.

“A vigorous private sector can surely not do without a robust financial sector, the pivot of which is an efficiently managed central bank, that’s why it hurts an economy when governments crowd out the private sector from accessing good and reasonably affordable private credit with massive over borrowing and competition,” he said.

The former president further underscored the need to strengthen the cyclical relationship existing between the public and private sector.

“The world today in both developed and developing parts, the term of act in this place is Public Private Partnership, in reality, the public sector must be the critical infrastructure for the private sector to flourish, so the private sector in turn sustains the public sector,” he added.

Meanwhile Mr. Kufuor has suggested to government to commit resources to improve the export sub-sector to help address what he describes as a gradual shift towards an import driven economy. He contends that a robust export sector will also help in addressing the cedi depreciation.

“Given the fact that the world is gradually moving into one common market of competitiveness and also the fact that Ghana is trapped into almost importing everything we use in our country and our economy is almost totally independent what we should do in building up a robust private sector is to focus targets on the private sector of exports to save us from over importing and also to gain the necessary hard currency from exports because without that our currency the cedi will continue to fall there will be no end to it,” he stated.

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By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citifmonline.com/Ghana