He said the large volumes of imports that have saturated the country’s markets meant Ghanaians’ were exporting jobs. He said the country could create employment in the right quality and quantity if Ghanaians produce a significant proportion of what they consume.

Dr Otoo made these remarks on Thursday during his presentation dubbed “In Search of Solutions: Labour- Private Sector Partnership for Jobs” at a TUC Ghana Breakfast Meeting in Accra.

The meeting brought together executives of the TUC-Ghana, the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), the Ghana Employers Association (GEA) and the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce (GNCC).

The meeting was about employment or lack of employment and what labour and private sector could do to address the challenge. Dr Otoo said for the private sector to expand, it must find market for what it produces externally or internally.

“The export market is difficult for most domestic firms: all the constraints we’ve mentioned make them uncompetitive on the export market,” he said. He said the domestic market has been taken over by imports; stating that this was the result of an unbridled trade policy.

“Our private sector is struggling. In such situations, what some countries have done is to find ways of shielding domestic firms that are vital sources of employment from the external competition,” Dr Otoo said.

“Our trade policy does the opposite: it overexposes our weak and fledgling private sector to external competition. Governments have repeatedly said that our domestic firms must compete. Well, they cannot compete given the challenges they face.”

He said also the competitor firms from Europe and elsewhere were being subsidised heavily by, their governments; saying “we need to shield our struggling domestic firms from competition that has proven disastrous for them and for the country.”

“How do we do that? It is true that the global trading system can be very constraining. But it has some safeguards we can use to our advantage if we are minded to it and if we can overcome the imports lobby.”

On bound tariff rate (the highest tariff we have committed to charge on any specific product) and applied tariff rate (the tariff we current charge), Dr Otoo said the difference between the bound and applied tariff was the policy space.

He said countries facing the import surge that threatens domestic firms and jobs could raise their applied tariff towards bound rate. Dr Yaw Adu Gyamfi, President of AGI, said it was high time the AGI, TUC Ghana, GEA, GNCC and the Ghana Chamber of Mines (GCM) develop a common front when dealing with government on issues affecting them.

He urged Government to consult organised labour and industry in the implementation of its flagship programme “One District, One Factory”, to ensure its smooth implementation. Dr Yaw Baah, Secretary General, TUC – Ghana, urged organised labour to put pressure on government to do the right thing, because many of the nation’s failures were due to policies failures; declaring that good policies don’t fail.