The Information Minister, Mr Mustapha Hamid has dismissed claims that President Akufo-Addo was “creating jobs for the boys” hence the appointment of 110 ministers.
At a press conference in Accra on Wednesday where the Minister responded to the criticism, he said the number of 110 ministers of state and deputies were to assist the president deliver his “ambitious programme of national transformation and development, which the people of Ghana have charged him to implement”
He said the Akufo-Addo government has inherited a country whose economy is at its “weakest” and therefore require a strong army that will confront these challenges and resolve them in a rapid manner that is required to put the country back on the path of progress and development.
“If we keep doing business as usual we cannot transform the country in the manner that we envisage. As you are aware the 1992 constitution in Article 78 (2) empowers the president to appoint such number of ministers as he deem necessary for the efficient running of government.”
According to Mr Hamid the president was minded by that provision and the ambitious nature of his transformational agenda to put together a government that answers both to the constitutional provision and the need for rapid transformation of the country.
He therefore dismissed the claims that the appointments were jobs for the boys and insisted the president did not promise a lean government.
He said in the view of government, it was not the leanness and bigness of a government that determines its output and its ultimate performance.
“We have had in the history of this country, governments that are smaller that have landed this country in bigger debts and bigger mess than government that have had bigger ministers.
“I can purport to run a government with 10 ministers and still create an avenue for them to loot our nation, if that is what the Ghanaian people want, or to have a government that is bigger than that but which have people of integrity, of honesty, who are on the job and doing the things that ought to be done,“ he added.
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