The Communications Director of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akomea, has spoken to the criticisms that has generated since the appointment of President Akufo Addo's deputy ministers.
President Akufo-Addo has appointed 110 ministers in total, making his government the biggest in the Fourth Republic.
Many political pundits have criticized the President for his choice of a 'large' appointees. They are of the view that it will only burden the public purse considering that, aside the salaries and benefits, all these officials will retire with huge amounts as ex-gratia.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, Nana Akomea, noted:
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, a
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.
Source: Daily Graphic
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This is what this liar said. Read it for yourself. The Communication Director of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akomea has said he is “horribly disappointed” with President John Mahama’s appointment of 86 ministers and deputies to serve in his government. Nana Akomea wondered why the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) which, during its days in opposition, harshly criticized former President John Agyekum Kufuor for having 82 ministers and Deputies in his first government between 2001 and 2004 has rather done worse. He said the President should have rather had a lean government to demonstrate his concerns that the public purse is greatly under pressure from the public wage bill and thus the need for some belt-tightening as far as government expenditure is concerned so as to fight the 12.0 percent budget deficit of 2012. In his State of the Nation Address this year, President Mahama warned that “the meat had come to the bones” and therefore urged public sector workers to tone down on their labour demands. Nana Akomea wondered why the President has failed to demonstrate his leadership by example through a lean government. He questioned the relevance of the six Ministers of State at the Presidency mocking that each of them has been given “funny funny assignments”. Nana Akomea made the comments when he spoke on Joy FM’s News File Programme on Saturday March 30, 2013. Co-Panelist and Deputy Information and Media Relations Minister-Designate Murtala Muhammed defended the size of the Mahama Government. As far as the six Ministers of State at the Presidency is concerned, Murtala Muhammed said it was important having them to oversee the 47 Agencies under the Presidency. He also said almost all the Ministerial and Deputy ministerial appointees have some level of expertise and understanding in the field to which they have been appointed or nominated. Political Science Lecturer Ransford Gyampo had told some media earlier that a maximum of 40 ministers would have been enough to run the country.
Those supporting the actions of the president all their children are DONE with Colleges & most of them schooling overseas so they have nothing better to advise the president on. Especially when it comes to ministers been elected to go for vetting. Nominate someone with EXPERIENCED in researching on fallen standard of Ghana educational system not one in Private universities who has collected large sums of salaries with no clue how the public universities are fairing not forgetting cyto. Ghanaian politcians hate truth. They hide behind i'm npp faithful or ndc faithful.
NANA IS GOING STRAIGHT INTO THE GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS
AKUFU ADDO IS BEHAVING LIKE SOMEONE WHO DESPERATELY WANTS TO BE SUCCEESFUL BUT DOESNT KNOW HOW TO GO ABOUT IT. NANA IS JUST WISHING FOR GLORY BUT DOES HE KNOW WHAT HE NEEDS TO DO? OR HOW HE CAN GET THERE?. NANA, AM AFRAID LACKS THE KNOW HOW TO MOVE THIS COUNTRY FORWARD. I DONT THINK HE CAN DELIVER EVEN IF WE GIVE HIM A HUNDRED YEARS. BIG TIME FLOP.
My comments: If size is what matters, the dinosaurs would not have gone into extinction. A bigger government does not guarantee success!
Akomea should have been minister of information! Hamid is a hothead. Most of the information ministers in NPP were very measured and analytical- Kwabena Agyepong, Andrew Awuni, Nana Akomea etc. You need somebody who can argue logically without being overly aggressive. Mustapha Hamid reminds me of Asamoah Boateng. Such guys are loyal but a bit too aggressive. Listening to his arguments for the size of government made me worried. Nana should have made hamid director of communication at the presidency and given the info job to Akomea/oppong Nkrumah. The info minister is a top job in any administration and I hope Hamid doesn't mess it up.
shame on you Mr president we shall demonstrate to this. am really disappointed in you.
This argument does not make sense to me at all. Kuffour had 86 Ministers and outperforms Mills-Mahama 78 ministers. Nana taught it wise to have 110 Ministers based on his projections of key performance areas. Ghanaians talk too much with no empirical research and findings to back their arguments, the reason why we even import toothpick. My question is very simple. What number of Ministers are ideal for a country like Ghana and what will be the basis for saying so. What are the benchmarks and the parameters. To me at best, this is a baseless argument and only be measured after a year. If we have these number of Ministers and the country drastically improves will the numbers be an issue or we are suffering from the normal Ghanaian Talk with no alternative answers to the problems confronting us. With Mahama's 78 Ministers, our budget was overspent to the tune of USD$8 billion. Let us allow the man to be performance assess for at least a year and stop the hullabaloo
It's a matter of time. There's gonna be a complete turnaround for our country and economy. Let's exercise some level of restrain
This Akomea guy sometimes talks like an id00t.. If we take his words as "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, stabilize 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." So if USA is building space crafts, undertaking a space programmes, building the most sophisticated weapons on Earth...so they should have more MINISTERS'? Does that make sense to Akomea himself? Or he is talking his way into an appointment?