Vice President, Paa Kwesi Amisah-Arthur, has urged HR practitioners in the country to focus on developing a self-motivated human resource base for Ghana.

The Vice President is certain a self-motivated human resource base will help the country achieve full and productive employment and decent work for every Ghanaian by 2015.

He made this call in a speech read on his behalf by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Nii Armah Ashietey, at the investiture of the newly elected National Governing Council of the Institute of Human Resources Practitioners (IHRMP).

The event, which took place on Saturday, February 22, 2014 at the Accra International Conference Centre was on the theme: “The relevance of Human Resource development to National Development”.

 “The relevance of human resources development in Ghana today, as a factor in the overall national development agenda cannot be overlooked", the speech read for the Vice President stated.

“In Ghana for example, some progress in achieving full and productive employment and decent work has been made. Nevertheless, important challenges, which reflect high levels of decent work deficits, have remained, making the achievement of one of the targets of the Millennium Development Goal One (MDG1), which seeks to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger a difficult one”, the message added.

The Vice President also observed that considering that 2015 is barely two years away, "where our interventions towards the MDGs would be assessed, it behooves on us to harness all approaches that will critically have an impact on the interventions especially decent work."

The new President of IHRMP, Mr. John Wilson, an HR Management Consultant and Executive Director at ILO-SCORE Training Solutions, said, his team “decided to hit the ground running by starting to organise and executive an ambitious growth plan for the Institute within our 2-year tenure ahead of the usual formalities."

"Our first action was to set up institute Business Teams to facilitate our new Vision translated in 3+1 thematic areas of EXPANSION, VISIBILITY, CAPABILITY & CULTURE CHANGE”, Mr Wilson revealed in his acceptance speech.

Mr. Andy Osei Okrah, HR Director of the Forestry Commission, was sworn-in as the Vice-President of the Institute.

Other Executive members of the National Governing Council include, Mr. George Anto-Boateng, Mrs. Nana Yaa Twum, Dr. Edward Kwapong, Mr. Leonard Quarcoopome, Mr. Samuel O. Asiedu and Mr. Ebenezer Agbettor, who is the Executive Director of the Institute. 

The occasion was also used to officially launch the first programme on the Institute’s 2014 calendar, which is to put up an ultra-modern complex for HR practitioners behind the Trade Fair Centre, Accra.

A fundraising committee was inaugurated by the Mr Joe Debrah, Greater Accra Regional Minister, to kick start the process of sourcing for funds to build the HR Complex.

Out-going President of IHRMP, Mr. Dan Acheampong, pledged his continuous support to the new leadership and the Institute.

(Hon. Armah Ashietey (middle) officially outdoors the architectural design of the HR Complex with the Governing Council Members of Institute.)