[ 2016-11-16 ]

No job cuts under IMF deal: Mahama
President John Mahama has said there will be no
job cuts in the public sector under the three-year
$918-million deal between Ghana and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Executive Board of the IMF in April 2015
approved the three-year arrangement under the
Extended Credit Facility (ECF) for Ghana in an
amount equivalent to SDR 664.20 million (180
percent of quota or about US$918 million) in
support of the authorities’ medium-term economic
reform programme.

The programme aimed to restore debt sustainability
and macroeconomic stability to foster a return to
high growth and job creation, while protecting
social spending. The Executive Board’s decision
enabled an immediate disbursement of SDR 83.025
million (about US$114.8 million) to the West
African country. So far three tranches of the
money have been disbursed. The deal ends in 2017.

Labour unions have persistently expressed fears
that the deal imposes a freeze on public sector
hiring and also dictates that some jobs must be
cut.

However, Mr Mahama, while addressing leaders of
some unions that met him at the Flagstaff House on
Tuesday, said: “I wish to assure you once again
that the programme with the IMF will not lead to
any redundancy. It hasn’t led to any
redundancy.

“We imposed a net-freeze on public sector hiring
but it does not affect the health sector and the
education sector. What we have done is that as
many people as leave the public sector are the
same number of people we bring into the public
sector and that’s a temporary phenomenon in
order that we are able to get a handle on the
expenditure side of the budget, but with regards
to the health sector and education, we are hiring
even more numbers than has ever been done in the
history of this country.

“From 2010 to 2016, we’ve 78,000 teachers;
this is the biggest recruitment of teachers in the
history of this country. Between 2013 and 2016,
we’ve hired 23,400 nurses, which is the biggest
addition to the health sector in history, and, so,
we are creating more opportunities for employment
to take place because we are building new schools,
the new schools need teachers and non-teaching
staff. We are building new hospitals, CHPS
compounds, polyclinics and others and that means
we can recruit more nurses and other health
workers, and, so, I do believe we are working in
the right direction and we’ll continue to do
so.”

Source - Classfmonline

... go Back