The Central Regional Secretary of the Council of Labour, Mr. Samuel Kweku Doughan, on Thursday joined the call for the institution of a National Developmental Plan and Economic Structural Policy for the country.
He said the trend where every government worked according to its own manifesto neglecting the previous government�s efforts irrespective of their importance was doing the country a disservice, hence the need for the plan.
Mr. Doughan was addressing a meeting of the Cape Coast Metropolitan Council of Labour in Cape Coast to address the situation on labour front ahead of May Day which will be celebrated under the theme �Ghana�s Economy: a concern for all.�
He said the country was often compared with Malaysia which had its independence the same year as Ghana but that critics failed to realize that one of the reasons behind Malaysia�s success story was its National Development Plan.
He said the fall in the value of the cedi, 14 percent inflation and removal of subsidy on fuel had made living conditions unbearable and that the average Ghanaian was going through hardship.
Mr. Doughan said unemployment had resulted in the formation of the Unemployed Graduate Association and urged the government to create jobs for the teeming unemployed youth.
�The government of the day should do everything possible to fix the economy to suit everyone,� he said.
The National Chairperson of the Women�s Committee of Trade Union Congress, Mrs. Christiana Carl-Oparebea, said the Union was working in channeling problems of its members to government bodies responsible for issues that concern them.
She said she was unhappy that apathy had set in some local and regional unions and urged members not to be concerned about their salary alone but also other issues like the down-sizing of government employees as well as revive their meetings to strengthen the union.
The Regional Council of Labour Chairman, Mr. Ben Brown, advised workers to eschew bad work practices in order to justify their fight for better conditions of service.
Some members suggested the reintroduction of automatic adjustment of salaries whiles others called on the government to value its employees and reconsider its actions that were not helping production.
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