The Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA) has dismissed the advice made by staff of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a temporary hiring freeze in the public sector.
In CEPA’s opinion, the advice is “not a viable option and is flatly unacceptable” especially at this period where skills are needed for development of a healthy and skilled human resources needed to accelerate growth within a stable macroeconomic environment.
Dr. Samuel Nii-Noi Ashong, a research fellow at the Center said this when he was delivering a lecture on the theme “Need for a National Economic Policy, the role of Economics Students” to mark the second annual week celebration of the Economics Students’ Association of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. (ESA-KNUST).
According to CEPA, a lot needs to be done about remuneration in the key sectors of the economy such as health and education in order to minimize the brain drain phenomenon.
Delivering the lecture, Dr. Ahong said Ghanaians need to strengthen and enhance their potentials and creativity in order for genuine sustainable development and this according to him can be achieved through the establishment of good governance and the development of administration for effective translation of economic plans into action.
Touching on how to reduce poverty, Dr. Ahong acknowledged good progress in the fight to reduce the incidence. He was, however, quick to add to add that a lot more needs to be done by way of enrolling people to meaningfully participate in the growth process.
He also outlined a number of proposed growth strategy the country can adopt. Notable among them are the effort to shore up the Small and Medium scale Enterprise (SME’s) sector to make it important source of job creation and the development of agricultural sector, especially in an era of oil production- to avoid the so-called “natural resource curse.”
Dr. Ashong advice the students to be crafty and indigenous enough to adopt the various models and make them locally relevant.
He again suggested that student economists foster a sense of healthy competition among the Economics Students’ Associations of the various tertiary institutions hinting that CEPA is currently planning to launch a schools and colleges programme where material for competitions.
In his concluding speech, he encouraged the student economists to play activists roles in the communities and locations during vacations.
