Youth and Employment Minister ET Mensah does not have a reliable data on the unemployment rate in Ghana. He made the confession on the floor of Parliament on Thursday. The sector minister was dragged to Parliament to provide data on the rate of unemployment in Ghana and possible ways to resolve it. But the Minister said: “You need to get the statistics to be able to churn out the correct figure. So we are saying that since the last round of Ghana Living Standards Survey, we don’t have any statistics to tell you exactly [what] the unemployment situation is in this country,” Mr ET Mensah said on the floor of Parliament. The last Survey was conducted in 2006. The Minister blamed the absence of a reliable data on what he said is the paucity of logistics and finances to conduct a comprehensive survey on the unemployment rate. “We do not even have a full time labour economist. Ideally when you look at the departments, we should have a labour department and statistical unit, well resourced. We don’t have it,” he pointed out. He insisted the problem has persisted, something his predecessors are well aware of. His pronouncements did not go down well with the members of the House, especially those on the minority divide. The MP for Takoradi, Kwabena Okyere Darko Mensah whose question brought the minister to Parliament said the Minister’s response is only a testament to the unemployment situation in the country. He wondered what data the Minister is using to solve the unemployment crisis in the country, especially when unemployed footsoldiers of the NDC have been on the rampage. “The answers he has offered show that he is only working blindly,” the MP noted, adding, it explains why he (minister) could not defend the purported 1.6 million jobs the Deputy Information Minister Okudzeto Ablakwa said the NDC had created in the first one and half years of his administration. Play the attached audio for excerpts of the submissions. Story by Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana