NPP Member of Parliament for Effutu, Alexander Afenyo-Markin says claims by President Mahama that there would be no retrenchment in the public sector as part of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout conditionalisties are untrue.
“I don’t think Mr. President was telling the gathering the exact truth because even the Ministry of Finance has come to Parliament to talk about how they were going to carry out some retrenchment at least at the statistical service,” Afenyo-Markin said in an interview with TV3 Monday.
He added: “they came to seek approval for a loan to pay severance packages for those who will be affected. I think all that Government has decided to do is to suspend the retrenchment to 2017 so that if it happens that they win the elections, then they will go ahead with it or that if a new government comes, it becomes a burden for them.
President Mahama at a national conference of Public Chief Directors, Chief Executives Boards and Councils of the Public Sector Commission in Koforidua last Friday, said it appears some people are misconstruing an impending rationalization exercise in the public sector for retrenchment.
According to the President, government was not going to do wholesale employment, but would employ people to fill vacancies created as a result of pensions, resignation and deaths. But Afenyo-Markin has called on the government to disclose the full conditionalities attached to the IMF bailout.
“If government wants to be sincere it should make a full disclosure of what the conditonalities are. If the President for the purpose of political convenience is telling us there will be no retrenchment, we live to see”.
“It is very misleading for Mr. President to suggest to the people of Ghana that such conditionality is not part of the IMF programme. Public sector workers are going to be laid off. They may have succeeded in convincing the IMF to defer that to 2017. I am so surprised and disappointed that Government didn’t accept what is in the public domain but rather came to say something different.”
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