By Kodjo Adams
Accra, Aug 28, GNA – Mr Ignatius Baffour Awuah, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, has advised the leadership of the Management and Development Productivity Institute (MDPI) not to rush into offering degree programmes.
They should, rather, focus on the core mandate of promoting national productivity.
The Minister said maximising productivity was a challenge in both public and private organisations and it was the responsibility of the Institute to embark on practical and problem-solving capacity building to promote increased productivity.
Mr Awuah said this, on Friday, at the commissioning of a state-of-the-art office building of MDPI located at the North Ridge, in Accra. It relocated from the Marine Drive, near the Christianburg Castle, Osu.
Mr Awuah said the new edifice formed part of the Government’s commitment to resource the Institute to perform its responsibility effectively and efficiently.
He said the Institute was one of the oldest to be established, in 1967, under a joint Ghana Government, United Nations Development Programme and International Labour Organisation Project.
He said in the early 1970s the then Government bought a parcel of land at Batsoona, where it intended to build a permanent structure for the Institute but the facility was occupied by encroachers, making it difficult to evacuate them.
He said a 13-member committee, which probed the encroachment, however, reported that the land in question was legally acquired by the Government for the MDPI.
Except for the Nungua Stool, compensations were duly paid to all affected persons, with the last instalments of payment made in 1981.
Mr Awuah said, consequently, through the effort of the Ministry, Cabinet approved a request to regularise the permit of the encroachers on the land.
The Minister said the new edifice signified a new branding for the Institute to continue to help public and private sector organisations develop the capacity of their labour force for productivity improvement.
Mr Kwaku Odame-Takyi, the Director-General of MDPI, said the Institute had developed a Management Training Programme for 2020 to meet the productivity needs of companies and institutions.
He said the MDPI, in collaboration with the ILO, had been executing the Sustainable Competitive Responsible Enterprise (SCORE) training programme since 2013, sponsored by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and the Switzerland State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.
The SCORE is a global ILO development cooperation programme that promotes productivity, competitiveness and decent work in emerging economies.
He said the SCORE had demonstrated best international practices in the manufacturing and service sectors and had helped Small and Medium Enterprises to participate in global supply chains.
GNA