Human Resource Management Practitioners Meet

By William Yaw Owusu

Saturday October 21,2006
This year’s summit to discuss human resource management as the driving force behind the country’s growth and development was held in Accra last Thursday.

The annual event instituted by the Institute of Human Resource Management Practitioners IHRMP Ghana in 2004, to deliberate on issues affecting human resource management and development, was under the theme: “Public Sector Reforms – the Human Resource Dimension.

It was attended by more than 50 human resource managers mostly from the public sector.

Dr. Paapa Kwesi Nduom, Minister of Public Sector Reforms, who was the guest speaker, said there was the need for a confident, purposeful and well-motivated public sector that would propel the country’s economic agenda to ensure growth.

“For the public sector to work effectively, they will need a better leadership that focuses on quality delivery of service” he said.

Dr Nduom stated that the country had faced a crisis of inappropriate and disjointed human response management in the public service over the past 30 years and this has made it difficult for us to have a smooth and experienced public service.

He said to ensure effectiveness and efficiently, the public service should be non-political, impartial and have high level of integrity.

He said over the past years, many development programme were introduced, all of which emphasized human resource development as the engine for growth and development but could not be implemented fully to ensure their success, thereby leaving human resource development in limbo.

“We have allowed by law in Ghana the proliferation of public services separate from the Civil Service without putting into the place a common framework or standard for wage and salary administration, conditions of service and overall human resource management and a common mechanism for ensuring equity across board”, he added.

Dr. Nduom said the ministry could continue to pursue programmes that would help in the success of the poverty reduction strategy and the attainment of the millennium development goals.

Mr. Kwadwo Asare-Bediako, a member of IHRMP, said “we have failed to utilize the vast potential in the country’s human resource for rapid development.

He said businesses all over the world recognized the pivotal role played by human resources, saying that “the level of the country’s future development will depend on how we make use of our human resource”.