Former Deputy Minister of Finance, Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, has backed the nomination of three deputy finance ministers, describing it as crucial due to the current nature of Ghana’s economy.
Mr. Ricketts-Hagan believes the workload requirements of the Ministry of Finance means more than two deputies can help make effective execution of tasks would achievable.
“Additional person may not be needed, but an additional person can be helpful. You can break the Ministry of Finance into two: the finance and economic planning…the schedule of the other Deputy Minister is to do economic planning and you have the other [deputy minister] doing the budgeting.
“But there is a third area which is popping its face up at the Ministry and that is the management of the financial economics that is taking place at the ministry and that is to do with debt management going to the bond market, the PID [Public Investment Division] area, which is to do with investment, the PPP [Public-Private Partnership] and the relations with financial institutions,” he said.
The Nana Akufo-Addo-led government was criticised following the nomination of three deputy ministers for some ministries.
The administration has also received a backlash from the public for has been described as a bloated ministerial portfolio — some110 so far.
However, Mr Ricketts-Hagan notes that the three deputy ministers for the Finance Ministry may not be excessive if the workload there is taken into consideration.
He states that although the public servants play a critical role at the Finance Ministry by providing important technical support, “the ministerial position provides political leadership” that gets jobs done on time.
This political leadership, he adds, is also important to effectively drive the vision of government.
“For instance if you look at the PPP, not much happened at the PPP and one of the reasons is that the deputy minister responsible for economic planning was the same minister who is also responsible for PID and all that so you realise that there is a lot going on…for PPP to be driven, you needed some political leadership,” he said.
Click on the audio below link to listen to Mr Ricketts-Hagan make his submissions to Joy Business’ George Wiafe.
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