Appointments Committee of Parliament vets Presidential Ministerial nominees

Four presidential ministerial nominees on Thursday appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament for vetting. They were; Mr Moses Asaga, Minister designate for Employment and Social Welfare, Mr Dominic Azimbe Azumah, Minister of State designate for the Presidency, Mr Fritz Baffour, Minister designate for Information, and Mr Henry Ametefee, Deputy Minister designate for the Volta Region. Mr Asaga pledged to carry out skills gap analysis to ensure that “skilled labour could be fixed in their appropriate industries where mostly needed.” He said that he would actively participate in the debate on local content bill before Parliament, to ensure that qualified unemployed youth get jobs. Mr Asaga noted that graduate unemployment was increasing because the number of universities had increased. He stressed that with limited industries to absorb the graduates for jobs, there was the need to undertake skills gap analysis more especially in the oil and gas sector. Mr Asaga promised to address the challenges of the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) scheme, which had achieved 97 per cent coverage. He said when given the nod, he would work hard to ensure that the remaining three per cent coverage was achieved. Mr Asaga gave the assurance that his experience at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning would be brought to bear to assist the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission to implement the scheme. Mr Fritz Baffuor said the advent of the new media had brought with it a lot of challenges on the journalistic landscape as access to information was easily available. He said media pluralism had surmounted problems of media personnel, and that efforts would be made to make the Ghanaian media more credible in their reportage. Mr Baffuor called for a public broadcast service that should be wel-l balance, to make State media maintain their credibility. He noted that the National Media Commission was established not to punish but to guide and direct media organisations, to perform in accordance with their code of ethics. On civic rights and responsibilities of Ghanaians, Mr Baffuor called for cooperation between the National Commission for Civic Education and the Ministry of Information, to educate the people to be alive to their rights to ensure peace and reconciliation among the citizenry. Chaired by Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, Member of Parliament for Avenor Ave and First Deputy Speaker of Parliament. Meanwhile on the floor of Parliament, papers district legislative Instruments were presented, the Colleges of Education Bill, 2011 was also read the second time.