The transition teams of President Mahama and President-elect Nana Akufo-Addo will today [Monday] meet for the second time as moves to ensure a smooth transition continue.
Today’s meeting will see the setting up of sub-committees to discuss pertinent issues covering the transition.
Government also indicated that the remaining hand over notes would be made available to the President-elect’s transition team after eight of them were presented on Wednesday, December 14.
Per law, all the handing-over notes were supposed to be ready by September 2016 but a few hiccups prevented this from happening, according to the Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah.
But Mr. Debrah said the President-elect’s transition team had agreed to wait till Monday for the remaining handing over notes.
The last meeting of the transition team on Wednesday, December 14 was to settle on the sub-committees to be established and the composition of each committee so that the various committees could begin the process of planning the inauguration ceremony, handing over the machinery of the Civil Service among other mandates.
By the provisions of the Presidential Transition Act 2012 (Act 845) the transition team is to make comprehensive arrangements to regulate the transfer of political power following a Presidential election.
The law provides for the establishment of three specific committees; the inauguration sub-committee, the government machinery sub-committee and the presidency sub-committee and any other committees the transition team considers relevant for the performance of its functions.
The transition process has not been without its hitches as concerns have been raised with the Administrator General’s office to carry out its mandate in the ongoing government transition.
Under the amended Presidential Transition Act, the Administrator General’s role is critical in the safeguarding of state assets as well as overseeing the transfer of handing over notes among other key responsibilities in the transition process.
But it emerged that the Administrator General’s office was woefully under-resourced and its under-staffed office works without a car and resorts to the use of illegal commercial motorbikes popularly known as ‘okada’ to undertake its activities.
The office is also in dire need of persons with IT skills to handle some operations in the office.
The representative of President-elect Nana Akufo-Addo, on the Transition team, Yaw Osafo Marfo, had asked for clarity on alleged fresh recruitments into the public sector, and the awarding of fresh contracts days after the National Democratic Congress government lost the elections.
On these concerns, government reminded that it remained the lawfully elected government of the Republic of Ghana and had the authority to exercise all the functions of government until the hand-over on January 7, 2017.
Government’s transition team was also forced to rubbish allegations by the Acting General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu, suggesting that the handing over notes made available to the incoming government had been “doctored”.
In a statement, government said such comments convey the impression that the NPP is looking to demonize the out-going John Mahama-led administration.
The government transition team was also forced to deny reports that the handing over notes for the incoming President-elect Nana Akufo-Addo-led administration were not ready.
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