Thomas Nyarko Ampem, the Deputy Minister of Finance, has revealed that Ghana will need GH₵12 billion to employ 145,000 health, education professionals.
The Deputy Minister of Finance revealed that Ghana is facing a severe backlog of unemployed professionals in the health and education sectors.
Hon Ampem revealed that since 2019, Ghana has accumulated a backlog of 74,000 health professionals and 71,000 education professionals.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, October 8, 2025, Mr Ampem stated, “If you look at the health sector, every year from 2010 to date, about 26,000 professionals are trained, and out of that, only about 13,000 are recruited annually. Since 2019 to date, we have had a backlog of about 74,000 unemployed health professionals who are waiting to be recruited”.
Hon Ampem further emphasised that the education sector faces similar challenges, with colleges of education and universities producing roughly 35,000 to 81,000 graduates yearly.
He explained, “There are about 14,000 of them who are not employed each year, and we have a backlog of about 71,000 unemployed education professionals”.
“If we put the 74,000 health professionals on the payroll, we will need an additional GH₵6 billion annually to absorb them — and another GH₵6 billion for the education sector. This is just for the backlog of professionals who have not been employed,” he noted.
He further noted the plight of over 12,000 workers who have been employed but remain unpaid, adding that steps are being taken to resolve the issue.
Also, Dr Rashid Pelpuo, the Employment and Labour Relations Minister, has said the former Akufo-Addo government recruited 12,000 new workers without financial clearance to pay them.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express on October stated, “This tells the story of what complaints we had when we assumed office. At the point of exit of the NPP government, they imposed on us 12,000 new workers that they did not prepare to pay. They didn’t have the money to pay them, but they employed them. And then they exited.
The three-month budgets which they had to prepare for, as we take over, didn’t take into consideration any of these. And so we came into office with no preparations to pay anybody.
All the people they had just newly employed did not have enough clearance, but they imposed them on the government, and then they left”.
He further recalled a similar situation in the past under President J.A. Kufuor when he was leaving office.
Dr Rashid Pelpuo added, “Remember when President J.A. Kufuor was leaving, what was imposed on us was the Single Spine Salary Structure, which Atta Mills had to struggle with. So it’s like their DNA to give the incoming government a problem — let them fail, and let the people say that they have failed.
“It’s not a good thing for us to be doing. Once your point of existence as a government comes to an end, go. The people had already rejected you. There’s nothing you can do to bring yourself back to power. You can’t recreate a future which has been lost.”
“We are working towards ending this problem of unpaid workers. We acknowledge the fact that young people need to start life and be comfortable working for what they have been employed to do.
So we are doing everything to make it possible that we solve this problem, maybe before the end of the year.”