Feb 19 - Job Strategy Statistics “Artificial” Until Government “Comes Clean” - GSD
The GSD says that the Government’s response to the its recent call for disclosure of the names of private employers who are employing FJS trainees “speaks volumes of their lack of transparency, direction and vision on this, as on many other issues.”
The Government, says the GSD, is hiding behind employment statistics rather than being transparent about what should be the real focus of any employment and training policy worth its salt – providing real, quality training for real jobs.
The Government, the GSD continues, fails to tackle, head on, the reports which are reaching the Opposition as to the artificiality of the scheme which is seeing, for example, trainees being allocated in companies registered at No 6 Convent Place or Town Range. The Opposition says it also knows of a private company which can receive trainees and then supplies them to fill public sector posts. It is not known how many trainees this company is receiving because the Government refuses to disclose this information to the tax payer.
Instead of providing statistics, as if this was the only thing that mattered, the Government, insists the GSD, should provide the full transparency which the GSD seeks. Only then will the Opposition and the public be able to determine where our trainees are being placed.
The Government does not reveal the details of those employers who are participating in the scheme because they wish to conceal, according to the GSD, the likely fact that their scheme is a “sham” and not providing real, quality training for real jobs.
What is clear to an increasing number of people, argues the GSD, is that the scheme was little more than another “very expensive ploy” by the Government to get people to vote for them at the last election.
Damon Bossino, the GSD spokesman for employment said:
“The governing party stopped at nothing to win power at the last general election by offering everything to almost every sector of society, with employment and training being no exception. To conceal its failure to provide real, quality training for real jobs the Government can only but hide behind statistics. The Government lacks transparency, direction and vision on this, as on many other issues.
“What is required is more of the good quality training programmes which the GSD secured when in Government in partnership with the private sector. Only last week we saw how more of our young people are continuing to benefit from the scheme established with Gibtel and I take this opportunity to congratulate each of the successful Gibtel trainees,” added Mr Bossino.
