Do Your Work - Prof Agyeman-Duah Urges Government Appointees

Professor Baffuor Agyeman-Duah, a former UN governance advisor, has called on government appointees to fulfil their mandate and stop safeguarding their positions.

He said the trend where government appointees appear to be ambivalent on their expectations and rather enjoy making prestigious appearances was not helpful and must stop to ensure good governance in the country.

Professor Agyeman-Duah, who was speaking in reaction to recent events where members of the Delta Force, an NPP vigilante group, stormed a magistrate court to free some of its members under trial, noted that ‘the incident was an intelligence failure’ and the police need to be proactive.

He said the Inspector General of Police (IGP) must not wait for the President to call him and direct him to do the very work to which he had been appointed to do adding that ‘the President is an individual and cannot do everything and so his appointees must work without fear or favour’.

Professor Agyeman-Duah said this on Sunday, as a panellist on Tv3’s current affairs programme called ‘Agenda’.

The panellists were discussing the topic: ‘Winner takes all and vigilante violence’.

Professor Emmanuel Asante, the Chairman of the National Peace Council (NPC), who was also on the panel, said the President must not be seen getting involved in the work of the police and the security people must act and come out with intelligence report to protect the people of Ghana.

He said the incident must serve as a wake-up call to the security agencies to be proactive and in doing that ‘they would assure Ghanaians that they have the capacity to work to protect the lives and properties of all’.

Dr Eric Oduro-Osae, a legal and governance expert, said it is important for party activities to be separated from governance activities so that there would be no interference.

Party meetings, he said, for instance should not be held at the chief executive’s office and in the ministries”.

He said the activities of the vigilante groups and the recent reports of various incidents associated with them were clearly interference in governance and must not be countenanced.