The Progressive People’s Party (PPP), has sternly criticized President Nana Akufo-Addo’s failure to cut the size of his government.
Akufo-Addo’s ministerial appointees so far stand at 36 with deputy and regional ministers yet to come, making it the largest ever in the history of the country.
This, according to Kofi Asamoah Siaw, the PPP’s policy advisor is unacceptable, arguing that some of the portfolios appeared to have been created to reward party faithful.
He told Naa Dedei Tettey on Starr Today on Thursday that: “If you look at the constitution about the composition of cabinet, in our view it gave a certain idea as to the number of ministers that a president will require to govern this country.
“So it says you cannot have less than nine or ten and you cannot have more than nineteen. So in the view of the framers of the constitution, nineteen ministers should suffice so far as the ability of the president to govern this country was concerned.”
“The rate at which we are adding on is more disturbing and is more worrying,” said Mr. Siaw.
According to him, the increment in ministerial portfolios is happening because the president is under pressure to satisfy “a lot of constituencies and cultures.”
However, a senior law lecturer at the Ghana School of Law, Maxwell Opoku Agyemang disagreed stating that the criticisms are misguided.
According to him, the fact that the number of Akufo-Addo’s appointees is the largest does not mean it will lead to ballooning the public purse.
He said “sometimes the frugality…and the financial prudence will mean that you may have 20 but they will work with the energy of five but sometimes you may have five because they are incompetent, inefficient, they are people of profligacy and wastage, and they waste money may even waste more than 50 people.”
