Manifesto Brief for November 11 2016: Employment Policies

Manifesto Brief for November 11 2016: Employment Policies

NDC:  Provide thousands of jobs through the supply of over 30 million improved, early-maturing and high-yielding coffee seedlings to farmers, and increase the total acreage of coffee farms from an estimated 6,000 hectares to 100,000 hectares by 2021

Coffee production in Ghana has witnessed a steady decline since the 1960s despite some initiatives aimed at reviving the sector. President Mahama in his last State of the Nations’ Address indicated that government’s support for a pilot coffee rehabilitation project by the Ghana Cocoa Board in 2010 resulted in a gradual increase in production to 6,000 metric tonnes in 2015, thereby making the case for a more focused government intervention on coffee production in order to revive the sector and diversify agriculture in Ghana.

The coffee sector in Ethiopia, the largest coffee producer in Africa and world's fifth largest producer, with an estimated 127,000 tonnes provides employment for nearly 15 million people and makes up some 28% of the country's export earnings of close to 1 million dollars annually. Whether the NDC government gets another mandate from the people or not, there is the need to pursue this agenda in the country’s quest to diversify Ghana’s exports and provide sustainable jobs.

NPP: Introduce tax credits and other incentives for businesses that hire young graduates from tertiary institutions

Government assistance to businesses which is often aimed at inducing growth in targeted areas of the economy and creating jobs is not necessarily new in Ghana. Over the years some of such incentives have included corporate tax cuts (offered as a deliberate strategy to beat competition for FDI in order to achieve rapid economic growth), tax holidays, location incentives, and many more.

The manifesto pledge by the NPP to offer similar incentives to companies that employ graduates from the tertiary institutions is laudable because of the huge graduate unemployment in Ghana. However, for effective implementation of this policy proposal, there is the need to develop the appropriate skills of the youth for the job market as the skill mismatch remains one of the factors that contributes to graduate unemployment in Ghana.

CPP: Launch the Ghana Emergency Employment Program (GEEP) aimed at mobilizing two million youth for the mass tropical almond tree project to generate billions of US dollars for our economy

Cocoa has received the most attention as traditional foreign exchange earner for Ghana, a situation that is indicative of the lack of political will to invest in other sectors. The potential of the almond as a game changer lies in the fact that “every part of the tree is useful and with the potential of becoming an alternative cash crop to cocoa and timber in Ghana.

Already, a processing machine has been designed by the Tropical Almond Growers Association of Ghana to distil edible oil from an almond. As the CPP puts it, the commercial cultivation of almonds has the potential to generate huge foreign exchange for the country. However, while the demand for the nut remains high owing to its health benefits, eighty-two per cent of the world's almond comes from California, where it is the leading agricultural export. There is therefore the need to aggressively follow through with this policy intention in order to create jobs and foreign exchange for the country no matter who wins the forthcoming elections.

This Manifesto brief is made possible with funding from American Embassy, NED, INDIGO Trust & GOGIG