Dr Sebastian Sandaare, Member of Parliament for Daffiama-Bussie-Issa constituency
Opposition Member of Parliament for Daffiama-Bussie-Issa constituency, Dr Sebastian Sandaare has indicated that the 30.8million population as announced by the Government Statistician following the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC), is meaningless if there are no jobs for the teeming unemployed youth of this country.
He indicated that population growth must be linked to development hence, if the youth who will ensure a meaningful contribution to the development of the oil-rich nation have not jobs to do, the expected economic growth will not be realized.
Ghana’s population is currently 30.8 million, according to the provisional results of the 2021 PHC released by the Government Statistician Professor Samuel Kobina Annim on Wednesday, September 22.
This is up from the 30.42 million figure as of 2019. The total population for Ghana as of the last census in 2010 was enumerated at 24,658,823.
The update was announced at a press conference in Accra.
Overall, females make up 50.7% of the population and males 49.3%, giving a national sex ratio of 97 males for every 100 females.
In all, 8,345,414 households were enumerated, with an average national household size of 3.6 persons.
Speaking on this development in an interview with TV3’s Komla Kluste, Dr Sebastian Sandaare said “I will say I am not all that surprised at the numbers. First of all, I would want to commend the country, commend the government, stakeholders that have ensured that at least, as a country we have been able to do this exercise. It is one tool or exercise that is very important for the development of every country because it is a planning tool, tool for research and helps plan the country better.
“For now, we just hope that the exercise will be done and we will get the final result that will help this country in planning, research.
“In terms of the numbers, in the 2010 one we were around 24.7million people. Of course, we expect it to grow and therefore, moving to 30.8million people in Ghana is not something that is surprising. But interestingly, we are increasing at a decreasing rate. For the growth rate in 2010, it was 2.5, growth rate now is 2.1, which means in terms of population growth or rate I would say is good for the country.
“Whiles you have a very large population it is possible that the resources as country will not be able to be distributed equitably or very well among the population in terms of population dynamics.
“For me we have to go beyond the numbers, we have to go beyond just saying we are 30.8million people in this country. “We have to look at the quality of life of these 30.8 million people and how many of us are well-employed or well-working, we can take care of ourselves and contribute meaningfully to the development of this country.
“So we have increased to 30.8 but I do believe out of these 30.8 million people not all of us contribute meaningfully towards the develop of this country because many are not employed, many are still depending on the few productive people or population i.e those who are able to provide food and shelter for the many people who are not working.
“That is what we should be looking at going forward. We should use this exercise, when the final result are out, to help us plan to ensure that our youth who are the active population, who are the productive population get jobs. It is when they are working that they can contribute to the development of the country. If not, as number it means nothing if any of the 30.8millio people are just suffering in Ghana.”