FLASHBACK: Merge new ministries to save cost – IMANI

Their concerns were on the back of the huge size of the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo led government.

Speaking to the media, the President of the Policy Think Tank, Franklin Cudjoe urged the ruling NPP to cut down the size of government.

“I believe that the Special Development Initiative Ministry, for instance, was created to take care of the One-constituency (the One-million dollars policy) while the Inner City and Zongo Development will cater for the Zongo Development Fund," he said.

Mr Cudjoe said as much as it’s a good idea to create the Ministry of Business Development, the government could have merged it with the Ministry of Trade while the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture could also be merged with the Ministry of Agriculture and appoint a Director to handle it.

Read the full story originally published on January 11, 2016, on GhanaWeb

IMANI Centre for Policy and Education has expressed some reservations over the number of ministries created by the new government and called for a merger of the new portfolios with the existing ministries to save cost.

Mr Franklin Cudjoe, the President of the Policy Think Tank, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview, that though the President explained the rationale behind the creation of the various ministries, he could still consolidate them to achieve his purpose. “I believe that the Special Development Initiative Ministry, for instance, was created to take care of the One-constituency (the One-million dollars policy) while the Inner City and Zongo Development will cater for the Zongo Development Fund, ’’he said.

Mr. Cudjoe said as much as it’s a good idea to create the Ministry of Business Development, the government could have merged it with the Ministry of Trade while the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture could also be merged with the Ministry of Agriculture and appoint a Director to handle it. Mr Cudjoe said though the creation of the new ministries was geared towards fulfilling the promises made to Ghanaians in the electioneering period, it should not be done at the expense of the economy.

The Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s government has so far created six additional ministries comprising Special Development Initiatives, Planning and Inner City, and Zongo Development. The rest are Business Development, Regional Re-organisation Development, and Monitoring and Evaluation.

So far, there are 36 ministries with an equivalent number of ministers nominated to head them and some governance experts believe that it would swell the government’s expenditure and be a drain on the national economy.

President Akufo-Addo, in explaining the reasons for the creation of the new ministries, said it intended to restructure the governance system so as to ensure efficiency in the public sector and bring governance to the doorsteps of the people. With regard to the number of females ministers nominated so far, he said, Government was on course to achieving its 30 percent female appointments into the public sector as promised by the New Patriotic Party during the 2016 elections.

He expressed optimism that more females would be nominated as Deputy Ministers and Metropolitan, Municipal and District Executives in subsequent ministerial announcements.