President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo seems to be content with what he has done within his six (6) weeks in office as the 5th President of the Fourth Republic. Assessing himself last week when he met the diplomatic community at the Flagstaff House, the seat of government, President Akufo-Addo expressed his elation at the fact that just over five weeks into his presidency his administration is beginning to take shape.
“I’ve been in office barely five weeks but so far so good.”
“Parliament has approved all my 36 ministerial nominees who have been sworn into office; the ten regional ministers are currently being vetted and shortly, I will announce my nominees for the positions of deputy ministers,” the president was reported to have said.
He went further to praise himself also for being able to appoint 11 Ghanaians and two former heads of security services, pending the approval of Parliament to become members of the Council of State as the Constitution requires of him.
All is good, but must President Akufo-Addo be excited in these constitutional requirements? Fine, I will not begrudge the president, if he is only excited for the fact that he has been able to assemble the best materials to help him deliver on his mandate, which is subject to debate, whether his team is the best for the country or not
The over 5 million Ghanaians who voted for President Akufo-Addo and his New Patriotic Party (NPP) last year December 7, are not interested in his team although without a formidable and competent government, it will be difficult for his administration to succeed by fulfilling the plethora of promises he made to Ghanaians during his campaign to win power.
Majority of Ghanaians expect President Akufo-Addo who won the December 7 election on a change campaign to transform the economy and not to be touting himself. In fact, he is not supposed to sing his own praises, the good people of this country should rather do that when they begin to see and feel that the change they voted for is yielding results.
Already there is an alleged widespread attack by his party’s foot soldiers on the members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the controversy over whether it is prudent to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Ghana’s independence which President Akufo-Addo must address, and not the men and women that he has put together.
A government can have all the best materials in terms of human resources, but if the people are not committed to its course, or share its vision, it will definitely fail, and that is why President Akufo-Addo should not be deceived by the people he has assembled.
I’m also not by this saying that his team will fail him. Far from that! Indeed, I’m one of those who think President Akufo-Addo will have one of the best cabinets in the history of this Fourth Republic, but that will depend on how they will conduct themselves as well as the affairs of this country.
Ghanaians will not forgive President Akufo-Addo and his NPP if they fail to redeem all their promises. We are not ready for excuses, neither are we ready to take no for an answer for his failure. So the NPP’s ‘so far, so good’ claim must wait until we begin to see the government fulfilling its promises, then we can all join the government to sing the ‘so far, so good’ chorus but not now.
We have not forgotten the one-district, one-factory, one-village, one-dam, $1million for every constituency, job creation, the stability of the cedi, tax reduction among other promises which made Ghanaians vote for the NPP. So we expect President Akufo-Addo as he delivers his maiden State of the Nation Address (SONA) tomorrow, February 21, 2017 to Parliament, to address issues about security, economy and patriotism and his polices and programmes for the next one year.
In all this, he must give us timelines for each of his policies or programmes, particularly how his government is going to fund the much-talked about free senior high school (SHS) policy which source(s) of funding since its implementation date was announced by the president recently has stirred controversy in the media.
Ghanaians cannot settle for anything less than this, so we are watching from afar when the ‘so far so good’ mantra will manifest in our lives as we will continue to wish the president and his team well for the next four years.
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.
