The Senior Presidential Advisor, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, has stressed the critical need to expand Ghana’s private sector as a means of mitigating and addressing the risk of widespread employment challenges among the educated youth.
He made the call when he provided update on results achieved under the Public Sector Reform for Results Project (PSRRP) yesterday at Ministry of Information, Accra.
Mr Osafo-Maafo emphasised the importance of supporting the private sector, saying that “sometimes people don’t see the need to support the private sector.” According to him, relying solely on the government to generate employment opportunities is not feasible.
“If you’re going to create employment, the government alone cannot achieve this,” he stated. He underscored the limitations of government capacity, pointing out that expanding ministries to absorb all graduates from universities is not a sustainable solution.
He highlighted a stark contrast in Ghana’s educational landscape over the years. He recounted that during his tenure as Minister of Education, Ghana had only five universities—four public and one private. “Today, that number has surged to approximately 92 universities. This dramatic increase means that relying solely on the public sector to provide jobs for the growing number of graduates is not feasible,” he said.
“So, you can’t solely rely on the public sector create employment for the graduates that would be churning out. We are going to have a situation where very well-educated people are unemployed. So, we’ve got to make sure the private sector expands to support employment generation,” he reiterated.
The PSRRP
Touching on the PSRRP, the Senior Minister said the government, through his office and the Public Sector Reform Secretariat, had implemented the first-ever Public Sector Reform for Results Project (PSRRP) from 2019-2023.
He indicated that the World Bank provided the PSRRP with a credit facility amounting to US$ 35million for which a Financing Agreement was signed on November 12, 2018. “The Project was restructured within the period, July-December 2021 which had the amount reduced to US$ 24million to cover 13 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies,” he indicated.
He mentioned that the beneficiary institutions (Selected Entities) of the Project included the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), Passport Office (PO), Births and Deaths Registry (BDR), Ministry of Transport (MoT), Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration (MFARI), Ministry of Environment Science Technology and Innovation (MESTI), Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development (MLGDRD).
The rest, according to him, include Public Services Commission (PSC), Office of the Head of Civil Service (OHCS), Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Monitoring and Evaluation Secretariat (MES), National Information Technology Agency (NITA) and Public Sector Reform Secretariat (PSRS).
He announced that after four years of implementing the project, the beneficiary institutions had made considerable progress towards enhancing efficiency and accountability in delivering their services to citizens and the private sector.
“The three key achievements are strengthened organizational performance for improved service delivery, improved efficiency, accountability and citizen engagement in the delivery of selected services, as well as an expanded access to public services,” he listed.
Pathway
He stressed that the PSRRP was a vital pathway to building a government that truly serves the needs of its people and the private sector.
“Ghana can attain sustainable development through a transformed public sector institution. We must therefore sustain these reforms to enable our public institutions to be more efficient, effective, transparent, accountable, and responsive,” he noted.
He, therefore, urged all stakeholders to commit to this pathway of public sector reforms with determination and service to the good people of Ghana. He entreated the beneficiary institutions to sustain the gains and ensure periodic maintenance of the systems, equipment and vehicles provided under the Project.
“In view of the usefulness of this Project to the citizenry, it is the hope of the Government that the World Bank will look at supporting another Project to sustain the gains from the PSRRP,” he added.
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