Government has been called upon to initiate a process to review the Act that established the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to incorporate institutionalised human resource development interventions in the informal sector.

A Consultant to the Suame Magazine Industrial Development Organisation (SMIDO), Nyaaba-Aweeba Azongo, who is advocating the review of the Act, explained that development of the industrial sector in the country could be pursued if government provides funding to it.

"The GETFund offers an avenue for the infrastructure development of the industrial sector, but the law as it stands now does not allow monies to be sourced from it to develop other sectors apart from education.

"The efforts by SMIDO to address this technological backlog with a project to establish a Suame Technical Automatics Engineering Institute as a formal institutionalised training centre for the artisans has to date not received any support from government," he said.

He said modern technologies in the automobile industry has put the survival of more than 200,000 artisans at Suame Magazine industrial community under threat and efforts must be made to strengthen their capacity to compete favourably.

Azongo said it was an irony and development injustice for those in the informal sectors of the economy to contribute to GETFUND sources and be denied benefit of GETFUND human resource interventions in favour of the formal sector.

He cited the Suame Magazine Development initiative under the SMIDO Project as a perfect case of weak national commitment of governments towards the informal sector.

"Whilst the artisans of Suame Magazine are also undergoing training with their numerous apprentices contributing to GETFUND sources, they have neither been seen nor noticed within the operational scope of GETFUND benefits since its inception.

"This is against the rules of equitable development, fair distribution and respect for all sectors contributing to the national kitty," he added.

He said, the informal sector may be disorganised but it requires support to organise and formalise an institutional training system unique to the operational challenges of their sector to position it against the threat of extinction and to contribute meaningfully to economic development.



Source: B&FT