The Minority in Parliament has taken a swipe at President Mahama for the mass dismissal of public sector workers employed between October and December 2024.
Reacting to the State of the Nation Address delivered by the President, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, Member of Parliament for Effutu and leader of the Minority caucus, stated that President Mahama will go down in history as the President who dismissed more public sector employees within the first 100 days of his presidency than any other.
Julius Debrah, the Chief of Staff, issued a directive in January to all state agencies and institutions to suspend the employment of all workers hired after 7 December.
Subsequently, many public sector agencies have either withdrawn or suspended the employment of workers, some of whom were recruited as far back as October 2024.
The most affected sectors include health, education, NEIP, the Bank of Ghana, and the Ghana Water Company.
Delivering the SONA on Thursday, the President lamented the high rate of unemployment in the country. Reacting to this, the Minority, who wore black to Parliament yesterday as a sign of solidarity with the workers who have lost their jobs, chastised the President for dismissing workers on one hand while lamenting unemployment on the other.
Minority leader Afenyo-Markin also criticised the President for failing to fulfil his campaign promise of appointing 30% of women to his Cabinet.
He stated that although the NDC pledged to reserve 30% of Cabinet appointments for women, only two out of the 19 appointed members—representing less than 10%—are women.
He expressed concerns over the rate at which the President is breaking his campaign promises within less than 100 days of his presidency.
Meanwhile, the Minority leader also criticised the President for engaging in what he described as ‘lamentations’ instead of getting to work.
He stated that the President spent his entire address lamenting the country’s situation, without even acknowledging the progress made in the last eight years.
The Minority leader questioned how an economy described in such terms by the President could still fulfil all statutory payments, including the payment of arrears to school feeding caterers and suppliers of food items to schools, increase public sector base salaries by 25% and 30% in some cases, support key programmes such as the Free SHS, and keep the lights on for eight years without experiencing ‘dumsor’.
