A member of the NDC’s manifesto team on job and employment, Abdul Nasser Alidu-Suglo, has disputed the ruling New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) claim of creating 2.3 million jobs from 2017 to 2023.
In its recently released 2024 manifesto, the NPP claimed to have created over 2.3 million jobs during its tenure.
However, Abdul Nasser says Dr. Bawumia’s claim is inconsistent with official statics from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).
According to him data from GSS reveals that employment increased by only 820,000 between 2017 and 2023 which contradicts the NPP’s claim.
“If that’s the increment, then the NPP can’t claim to have created 2.3 million jobs unless they’re suggesting that the GSS data is incorrect,” he said.
Abdul Nasser also condemned the selective use of data by NPP to paint a glowing picture and ignoring data that speaks to a much more worrying picture.
He highlighted the NPP’s reliance on International Labour Organization (ILO) statistics to support a 3% employment rate claim while ignoring the Ghana Statistical Service data of a 14.5% unemployment rate.
“The ILO’s narrow definition of employment fails to capture the true state of joblessness in the country,” he said.
“Many Ghanaians are supposedly employed but are actively seeking better job opportunities or feeling disillusioned with their current jobs,” he added.
Abdul Nasser emphasized that the NPP’s portrayal of the job market is overly optimistic, stressing that “there is hardcore unemployment in Ghana, and that is the situation we are in right now.”
He reiterated that the NPP lied about creating 2.3 million jobs and that the ILO data exposes the severity of unemployment in Ghana.
Story by: Emmanuel Coffie/Radiogoldlive.com
