A business consultant, Kwame Okyere Darko has bewailed that Ghanaians have not made our handy skills attractive enough for the youth to branch in to create jobs.
According to him, less value is put on those skills as though they are second class jobs.
He made this sentiment in an interview on the Epa Hoa Daben show with Don Kwabena Prah on Happy 98.9FM. “When people complete school and have such expertise they tend to trash it”.
He added that he started work as a Graphic Designer but he had to trash it and branch into finance as people had less respect for this profession. “When I design for customers they tend not to pay but they have no problem paying for printed works at the printing press”, he said.
He believes that if this area was regulated well enough and given the fair income he would have been a business tycoon in Africa.
Concluding he reveals how majority of Ghanaians are fighting for the same job and leaving these handcrafts. “The whole country is fighting for these so called first class jobs and trashing what they call the second class jobs. Our unemployment rate will continue to rise if we don’t branch”, he cried out.
Background.
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has urged fresh graduates from the various tertiary institutions to find innovative ways of becoming entrepreneurs.
According to him, that is the only way the rising unemployment rate in the country can be reduced. He said it will help reduce the over-reliance on the government for jobs, and also reduce the burden on the government’s payroll.
Speaking at the Springboard Youth Dialogues, Mr. Ofori-Atta explained that 60% of Ghana’s revenue is spent every month on the payment of salaries of public sector workers.
By: Louisa Antiede Tetteh