The Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations (MoELR) and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to harmonise employment data, which would help inform policy decisions of government.
The occasion was also used to launch the Micro Data Dissemination Policy to improve government statistics and enable small organisations to produce credible data.
In an address at the ceremony on Wednesday in Accra, the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Ignatius Baffour Awuah said the mandate of the Ministry is to coordinate all employment-related issues with an additional mandate of informing the public on happenings within the employment space.
He stated that the government was able to formulate employment strategies based on figures developed by the Ministry.
He indicated that the Research Statistics and Information Management (RSIM) unit works with other government agencies, particularly the GSS, to conduct surveys that help the government make informed policy decisions.
According to him, international bodies also collaborate with the government to conduct surveys, typically in the cocoa sector on child labour, adding that findings by the international community may not reflect the situation on the ground.
Mr Awuah said when the GSS is adequately resourced, it can equally perform the same exercise with distinction, hence the need to explore this collaboration.
“The Ministry is leveraging on the expertise of the GSS, given that the guidance and definitions would help come out with accurate data,” he added.
He further noted that the collaboration would streamline the statistics and figures and strengthen the capacity of the RSIM unit.
On his part, the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kwabena Annim, said the GSS has uncovered several policy documents that do not have statistics targets, adding that variant statistics produced by other Ministries, Departments and Agencies are inconsistent with statistics across the documents.
He said the data quality assurance framework and the code of ethics were key, especially on definitions, contexts and indicators.
Priscilla Osei-Wusu Nimako, ISD
