Formalise economy, create jobs to reduce poverty — Yaw Baah

The Board Chairman of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), Dr Anthony Yaw Baah, has stressed the need to formalise the economy and prioritise job creation to bridge the inequality gap and reduce poverty.

He observed that, having a job sector that was highly informal, inclusive growth was only possible if economic expansion translated into decent jobs.

Dr Baah said this at yesterday’s opening of the seventh International Research Conference of the University of Ghana’s College of Humanities at Legon in Accra.

“There must be a deliberate effort to formalise the economy and create decent jobs for those desperately seeking a living in the informal economy.

This is the most effective means by which economic growth can be made inclusive and also bridge the growing inequality in Ghana,” he said. 

The three-day conference, which brought together scholars, researchers, policymakers and development partners from across Africa and beyond, is on the theme:

“Bridging inequalities in a changing world: Advancing inclusive growth, resilience and sustainable natural resource management.”

Poverty

Despite three decades of steady GDP growth, Dr Baah, a former General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) of Ghana, said millions of Ghanaians remained in multi-dimensional poverty, with wide disparities across gender, regions, education levels and employment sectors.

Citing a 2024 GSS report, he revealed that 24.3 per cent of Ghanaians — some 7.3 million people — were multi-dimensionally poor, with rural areas and northern regions worst affected.

He also expressed grave concern about the stark income and pension gaps, including a 456:1 ratio between the highest and lowest SSNIT pensions. He called for a new national consensus and a binding social contract to make employment creation “the priority of priorities” across all government policies.

The former TUC boss also called for deliberate measures to formalise the informal sector, provide social security for the vulnerable and sustain programmes such as the “24-hour economy” initiative, which, he said, could create millions of jobs if fully implemented.

Dr Baah called for more substantial economic buffers on resilience, including well-managed external reserves and sovereign funds to withstand shocks.

He, however, criticised the country’s mismanagement of natural resources, while calling for lessons from the diamond revenue model of Botswana and advocated transparency and stronger negotiations in resource contracts.

Taxing wealth

The Country Director of Oxfam Ghana, Mohammed-Anwar Sadat Adam, urged African governments to close the widening inequality gap by taxing the wealthy and investing in public services that benefit the majority.

He said inequality was not inevitable but the result of deliberate policy choices which could be reversed.

He, therefore, urged governments to strengthen wealth, property and inheritance taxes and channel the proceeds into healthcare, education and social protection.

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