Workers Should Be Paid Hourly - Peace Amb. To Gov't

The United Nations (UN) Eminent Peace Ambassador to Ghana, Dr Samuel Ben Owusu is calling on the government to introduce a system that will pay workers per hour and not per day or monthly.

According to him, when the payment system is shifted from Monthly to per hour, considering the minimum wage, everyone in Ghana will get a job to do and the issue of unemployment will be settled.

In an interview with the media, Dr Samuel Ben Owusu observed that most workers are marked per day and paid at the end of the month.

The situation he was of the belief has contributed to the unemployment of most youths in the country.

He said because there has not been strong advocacy and implementation of the above suggestion, nobody wants to do that, saying that if the Government starts, the private sector will follow suit.

"Where things have reached right now, it will only take the government to institute a by-law or a system of operation that from today, we are going to pay people per hour, not per day or monthly. As it is now, most people in Ghana are marked daily, let us shift it into per hour, if the Government changes it to per hour, everyone will find a job," he said.

He continued," Just as it is done in the USA and the UK. So if someone likes, he or she can work two hours and close, and get 8 or 16 dollars per hour and they will calculate how much they want to make in a day. If the Government comes up with that concept and makes some institutions run that way, other private sectors will pick it up and there will be jobs for many people.'

Amb. Samuel Ben Owusu also observed that in most of the institutions, the workers go to work in the morning and close around 5 p.m., putting the work on hold till the next morning.

This, he said, was a waste of productive time, suggesting that the Government can also bring in a shift system such that while people are asleep after work, others will also go to work, explaining that it will also help employ more people while institutions make more profit.

"I think in the health sector, there are nurses who do shifts, so why can't we implement that system everywhere?" he questioned.

He then called on the Government to engage persons who have knowledge about critical issues including employment and peace moving forward.

"You see why Africa is not progressing, we are always way back. While the Europeans, the people around the world are working, we are sleeping and we say we want to have peace. Peace is development, peace is a system, peace is a foundation, if we want peace, we should sit down, some of these political leaders need to meet with some of us who have the understanding and knowledge of other things," he added.