Nana Dr Emmanuel Adu-Sarkodee Afriyie, the President of the Ghana Employers Association (GEA), has urged Parliament to enact a law to redefine the country’s development objectives and align them with the human capital produced by universities.

Speaking during an engagement with the New Patriotic Party Minority Caucus, Dr Afriyie emphasised that Ghana’s current human capital base did not match its development needs, warning that the mismatch was affecting business growth and employment.

The GEA President said, “We are still producing lots of MBAs, and nobody needs them for anything,” highlighting the need for a fundamental shift in the country’s approach to human capital development.

“We think that the human capital needs drastic alignment with the developmental needs of the nation. We need people who can actually do things for the nation, and we are not finding them to employ, and that is the problem that we are facing,” he said.

Dr Afriyie urged political actors to work together to address the country’s human capital challenges, calling for a long-term, bipartisan approach to ensure consistency in policy implementation.

Mr Alexander Afenyo-Markin, the Minority Leader, described unemployment as a structural challenge affecting productivity and national development, citing data indicating that more than 1.3 million young Ghanaians were unemployed.

“Education or training and youth unemployment is not a pipeline problem, but it is a national emergency… Youth unemployment stands at 32.5 per cent among those aged between 15 and 24 years, and this is a measure of deferred human potential and deepening inequality that no government can afford to normalise,” he said.

The meeting formed part of the Minority Caucus's efforts to engage stakeholders on challenges affecting businesses and employment, with participants considering establishing a joint working group to meet quarterly to exchange ideas and propose reforms to strengthen the private sector.