The Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akomea says concerns being raised about Akufo-Addo’s elephant-sized government are legitimate and understandable.
President Akufo-Addo has come under severe criticisms after new appointments announced on Wednesday brought the number of ministers and deputy minsters to 110.
The ministries of Information, Energy, Agriculture and Local Government will each have three deputy ministers, if the appointments are passed by Parliament.
Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu criticised the size of the government, saying it would “feed” off the public purse.
But Information Minister Mustapha Hamid hit back at critics saying “we never promised a lean government”.
In a Facebook post Nana Akomea said even though the size of the government is the largest in Ghana’s history, it is necessary to assist the president’s ambitious development agenda.
“There can be no doubt that president akufo addo’s government is the largest in the fourth republic. Numbers of ministers in all the previous administrations have never crossed 90. Even with that, there was always a clamour that the numbers were too large for a small poor country like Ghana.
“Ghanaians, including political parties in opposition always called for trimming of ministerial numbers as part of general belt tightening in a poor country and a show of leadership by example at the highest levels of government. So for ministerial numbers to cross beyond the nineties into the hundreds will surely alarm and disappoint Ghanaians.
“But there is also no doubt that president Akufo addo’s vision is the boldest and revolutionary of any president in the fourth republic. The vision of one factory per district, comprehensive free shs, comprehensive irrigation in the north, one million extra dollars per constituency, special prosecutor, etc, offers the country the real chance to industrialize, provide jobs to the teeming youth on a sustainable basis, move agriculture from peasant levels to real agric business, stabilise the cedi on a sustainable basis, aggressively meet the basic developmental needs of our deprived communities, tame inflation, tame corruption, and generally move this country onto the cherished new paradigm of progress and development.
“President Akufo Addo believes he needs these numbers of appointees to deliver. For now, these numbers are an issue, and the concerns being raised about them are legitimate, expected, and in order, just as the npp in opposition raised them.
“If he indeed begins to deliver concretely on his transformational agenda, then the numbers will cease to be an issue.”
