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Our economy is not normal - TUC

Dr Baah disclosed this during a meeting between the TUC and the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Nana Akufo-Addo

 

According to him, “inflation remains very high, interest rate is abnormally high, probably the highest in the world. That does not help our employers to borrow money from the banks. If you have a situation in the country where it is only the banks that are making profit, it is not normal.”

Dr Baah disclosed this during a meeting between the TUC and the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Nana Akufo-Addo, when the latter paid a courtesy call on the workers’ union at its headquarters on Monday, October 31, 2016.

The visit was also to interact with the TUC leadership, as well as outline policies and programmes intended to solve the challenges confronting the country.

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The TUC boss indicated that even though Ghana’s budget deficit is reducing, it still remains high, adding that “we have huge trade deficits, and weaknesses in trade policies, investment policies, procurement policies and macroeconomic policies. All these weaknesses need urgent attention.”

Dr Baah stressed that it is not normal for about 80 percent of all new foreign investments that come into Ghana to be located in Accra, Takoradi and Kumasi.

“…So we are interested in finding out what your government will do about these challenges, especially on interest rates. Our economy is not normal.”

“We live in a very abnormal economy and we are hoping that things change for us, because we are suffering as workers of Ghana,” he added.

Touching on the issue of unemployment, Dr Baah noted that “most jobs being created in Ghana are informal jobs. Our members are suffering from job insecurity, income insecurity is pervasive, (and there is) joblessness among the youth. Our children graduate from the universities and we are not sure they can get jobs.”

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He said: “Our education is in trouble, our national health insurance scheme is in trouble, corruption is pervasive. We have a situation where over 300 state assets have been privatized and we are still privatizing. We have challenges with our 3-tier pension system, and we don’t know the future of the scheme. Poverty is killing Ghanaians.”

He added that “the effects of free trade is killing us. Almost everything under the sun is being allowed to come into this country. Our jobs are being taken away to China… our real wages are not enough, and we have some employers violating the rights of workers.”

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