By Laudia Anyorkor Nunoo
Tema, Aug. 12, GNA – The Institute for Liberty and Policy Innovation (ILAPI) has urged the government to focus more on creating conditions for private businesses to generate jobs than on increasing the number of beneficiaries of social intervention programmes.
The institute said rising numbers of people depending on social interventions such as the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme should be treated as an indication that more people were falling into poverty.
Mr Peter Bismark Kwofie, Executive Director of ILAPI, said sustainable employment generated by private businesses was more effective in lifting people out of poverty than continued dependence on government welfare programmes.
He said the government should therefore channel more resources towards strengthening the private sector and enabling businesses to grow and employ.
“Only businesses take people out of poverty, not government welfare programmes,” he said during a press conference.
He argued that government social programmes involved redistribution of resources, while businesses created employment and income that could permanently improve household livelihoods.
He stressed that an increase in the number of people entering programmes such as LEAP and school feeding should not be celebrated as an economic achievement because it could indicate that more people were becoming poor.
He said the government would subsequently have to increase funding for such programmes, potentially through additional borrowing or taxation.
“The best solution is for us to have more businesses employing,” he said, adding that the regulatory environment needed to be relaxed to enable businesses to use more of their capital for expansion and job creation.
GNA
Edited by Audrey Dekalu
Reporter: Laudia Anyorkor Nunoo
Email: [email protected]