The 1992 Constitution allows every elected president of the country to appoint such number of ministers as necessary to help him in the efficient running of the State. In fulfilment of this constitutional requirement, when the President of the Republic, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo assumed office he appointed 110 persons for various ministerial positions including the ten regions.
This exercise saw the retaining of some ministries, the creation of new ones, and the scraping of others as well as the merging of some into single ministries.
Those pitching camp with the president did not see anything untoward about the 110 ministries. They consider the President’s action as necessary for the attainment of the New Patriotic Party’s campaign pledges. Thus, to that section of the political divide it was a prudent decision on the part of His Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
However, those opposed to the political persuasion of the president cried foul. They claimed that this number of ministers is the most bloated and unprecedented in the history of the country’s democracy.
Civil Society Organisations were not left unperturbed either. They too were drawn into the debate on the number of ministers, relevance or otherwise of certain ministries and how to safeguard the State’s kitty.
While some of them supported the president’s move, some were sceptic whereas certain section of them avoided the controversy and took the middle course.
However, the President, in his inaugural speech has assured Ghanaians that he “shall protect the public purse by insisting on value-for-money in all public transactions. Public service is just that – service and not an avenue for making money. Money is to be made in the private sector, not the public. Measures will be put in place to ensure this.”
For over a certain period of time after the President’s appointment and Parliament’s vetting and subsequent approval of the ministers the media, most especially radio, was awash with the topic.
Some see a government of 110 ministers as commendable while others are raising the issue of the relevance of some new portfolios. However, the interest of the Zongo dweller in all this is how his or her situation would be improved. This is the pledge made by President Nana Addo.
Since the announcement of the newly created Ministry of Inner City and Zongo Development, in addition to the promise of setting up of a Zongo Development Fund, the average Zongo dweller is enthused and excited. His predicaments have, at least, attracted the president’s attention.
However, the dust is not settled as the minister is yet to have an office and the personnel and logistics that are necessary for running a ministry. Nevertheless, the Zongo is inundated with discussions on expectations of the interventions of the ministry and the fund to their wellbeing. The Minister has been touring Zongo communities across the country to assess the development needs of Zongo dwellers. Reports indicate that, with the exception of the Greater Accra Region, nine regions have so far had their share of the consultative meetings.
Interestingly, another twist to the issue is that the “Inner City” is truncated in most of this intercourse making only the Zongo to look like the sole beneficiary of the ministry.
The inhabitants of Zongos are mostly sons and daughters of migrants from the sub-region, notably Nigeria. These migrants served in the Gold Coast Constabulary, Gold Coast Police Force and were also part of the West African Frontier Force during the First and Second World Wars. Some of them served as farm hands in cocoa plantations and labourers in the gold mines and the public sector as well.
It is important to note that before the establishment of the Ministry of Inner City and Zongo Development, the “position” of the Zongo and its “indigenes” in the country’s development is blur and hazy. Depending from which angle one is battling the issue, matters concerning the Zongo attract negligible, sometimes negative, publicity. However, over a period of time, the Zongo dweller has become politically conscious and therefore wants his/her share of development.
With coming into being of the ministry, Zongo dwellers would certainly not pretend to be unselfish. They recognize the benefit of the ministry in the development of their cherished “constituency,” the Zongo. Some refer to it as the 11th Region.
My position on Zongo development, the ministry and fund is that of ambivalence and that I do not see the benefit as entirely tangible.
One of the major benefits, to me, is a clear recognition and admission that there is a “carved” constituency whose constituents ordinarily could not put claim to historical ownership of mass of land as theirs.
For long the people of Zongo descent could not come out boldly to say that Darkuman, Nima, Shukura, Asawasi, Ashaiman, Nyakrom etc. are their home towns just because they do not belong to an ethnic group that is classified as indigenous. Neither of their lingua franca is identified as one of the languages recognised as Ghanaian. In most situations, such as filling forms for passport, national identity card, etc., they churn out inappropriate bio data. They thus feel marginalised.
Some politicians, as a result, shrewdly take advantage of this situation and position themselves and their partisan persuasions as “lovers” and “protectors” of the Zongo dweller. They adopt this ploy by giving it historical and political coloration.
Meanwhile, it is believed that the Ministry of Inner City and Zongo Development would bid farewell to the marginalisation and a fable of deporting people of Zongo origin.
The ancestors of the inhabitants of the Zongo migrated to the Gold Coast more than two centuries before the founding of the country called Ghana. The creation of the ministry has hence further thrown the relevance of the Zongo into a sharp relief.
Conversely, as a nationalist, I perceive the creation of the new ministry as superfluous. It is only a shrewd way of dissipating and misdirecting scarce national resources. The memories of how abysmal the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) performed still linger in our minds.
A well-intended intervention to bridge the development deficit between the North and the South was brought down crumbling to its knees by sons and daughters of those expected to benefit from such lofty and noble project. Therefore, when the president introduced the minister, Abubakar Saddique Boniface, as the darling boy of the Zongo I become edgy.
I visualize how former president John Dramani Mahama tried to repackage and rebrand SADA but to no avail. SADA’s image, like a perishable commodity, had already gone sour and it was one minute too late to salvage.
Would it be then out of place to say that the intended purpose for which the ministry is created could well be tackled by some existing institutions? The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, which is seen as the epitome of decentralisation, comprises the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).
The main function of these assemblies is to bring governance, vis-à-vis development, to the people. The Ministry of Local Government has part of its mission statement as follows: The Ministry exists to ensure good governance and balanced development of Metropolitan, Municipal and District assemblies.
The Zongo, ostensibly, is not one area situated within a specific geographical location but dispersed within the assemblies. And to enhance the socio-economic as well as the human development of these localities, the central government must adequately strengthen the assemblies.
The Zongo Development Fund could, for that matter, be channelled through the assemblies for the specific development of the Zongos under an Affirmative Action with a legislative backing. This approach, to me, would go a long way to “protect the public purse by insisting on value-for-money in all public transactions”.
Source: Abubakar Garba Osuman
