Minister-designate for Employment and Labour Relations, Nii Armah Ashietey has promised to hire independent experts to evaluate public employees’ productivity in order that the government will stop wasting money on under-performing workers. The single spine salary structure, implemented under the previous presidential administration, he said, does not properly correlate wages with performance, so government often gets too little value for the money it pays its employees. By setting annual productivity targets and bringing in outsiders to judge how fully these goals have been met, Mr Ashietey insisted that the government will waste less money and get better results for the money that it spends. Mr. Armah Ashietey told Parliament’s Appointments Committee which is vetting ministerial nominees of president John Mahama that it was his intention to help unemployed graduates access entrepreneurial training and capital to invest in new businesses. According to him, the Graduate Business Support Scheme had already been doing some work in that regard. He said 500 graduates had already received training and 76 had been cleared for funding after presenting business plans. Furthermore, he said, thanks to the Graduate Credit Insurance Guarantee Scheme, which is sponsored by the Export Development and Investment Fund, the young entrepreneurs can get funding without putting up collateral. The minister-designate stated that many youth found it impossible to get hired by a company without knowing someone there first. He called the practice an instance of corruption but added that the fundamental source of this problem was Ghana’s high unemployment rate. Once there are more jobs, he contended, nepotistic hiring practices will disappear. Addressing concerns over workplace safety, he promised to better resource his ministry’s Inspection Division to send officials to work sites where they can ensure that employers and employees observe safety regulations.