The Deputy Youth and Sports Minister-nominee, Pius Hadzide, has strenuously rejected description of President Akufo-Addo’s 110 ministerial appointments as “job for the boys.”
“We should stop saying this is Job for the Boys,” he said Thursday on Morning Starr.
The President has come under a barrage of scathing criticism following the disclosure of the full list of his ministerial appointees — which stands at 110. The number makes him the president with the largest government size since the fourth republic.
Many, including the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), IMANI, the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) have described the president’s numbers as shocking and an enterprise for rewarding ‘foot soldiers’ of the governing NPP.
In a statement issued on Thursday March 16, 2017, the CDD said the 110 ministerial appointments was “unprecedented” and “obscene.”
But Hadzide who is one of the 110 appointees said the criticisms were unwarranted, urging that they should be ignored.
“I mean if you hear some of these comments we can take it in stride and move on,” he told Morning Starr host Francis Abban.
He said the size of the government is negligible as the monies that will be spent on them is small and that “We have to measure Akufo-Addo by the output of the appointees, not the numbers.”
He added those appointed were not anticipating ministerial appointments but having being appointed, they were genuinely committed to fixing the mess left behind by the previous administration.
“Admittedly, what was happening in the country at the time…was a disaster. That was what it was, the president never negotiated with any one of us to say; come and then [I’ll reward you with appointment],” he said.
He also denied suggestions that most of the people appointed lobbied for the portfolios.
“I’m not aware of anybody who lobbied,” he said, adding “the President we have is the president that knows his people…the Ghanaian people. He is the president that knows his people, the party , and he is the president that has been attempting to be president for a long time,” he noted.
