An independent Political Analyst, Boakye Yiadom has advised President Akufo Addo to select only committed and energetic members of parliament to serve as ministers.
He is of the view that if the president fails to heed this advice, the governing party’s representation in parliament will suffer to push its policies through as they did in the case of the selection of the Speaker of Parliament.
According to him, the work of a minister requires a lot of movement and for a parliamentarian to play both roles effectively, that person should be committed and energetic.
He was speaking in an interview on the Daybreak Upper East morning show on A1 Radio in Bolgatanga on Tuesday, January 12, 2021.
“The president doesn’t have the luxury of having so many of its members in parliament. You now have an equal number as the opposition, so the president has no option than to reduce his ministers. So, if you go and appoint 120 ministers, it means 60 of them will have to come from parliament, because the Constitution of Ghana, says 50 percent of the ministers must come from parliament. That will reduce your strength in parliament and so most of your policies will not be able to go through. But if you reduce your ministers to half (that is if they are to be 60), it means only 30 are going to come from parliament and even that, you have to get people who are committed and energetic to be ministers as parliamentarians.
Then you have to appoint deputy ministers from outside parliament so that when the ministers who are parliamentarians are needed in parliament, the deputies can take charge. Strategically the president has no option than to reduce the number of ministers, and financially too, it wasn’t prudent for a country like Ghana to have about 125 ministers.”
Mr. Yiadom likened the situation to what happened in parliament during the election of the Speaker of Parliament, where the majority of the MPs selected Hon. A.S.K Bagbin who is energetic, over the president’s choice, Professor Mike Oquaye.
Meanwhile, Mr. Yiadom wants President Akufo Addo to scrape off some ministries and merged some others if he (the president), is willing to face reality and reduce the number of ministers.
President Akufo Addo in his first term, appointed over 120 ministers and created some new ministries, and despite the public outcry, the president insist that the ministers were needed to do the work at stake.
Sections of the public complained that having so many ministers meant that the government of Ghana was going to spend so much of the taxpayers’ money to pay their salaries and allowances.
Today, due to the number of parliamentarians on the government’s side, it looks like the president is most likely to take the advice of the public and some political analysts.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHZ|Ghana
