The Director of Local Government Services at the Office of the President, Dennis Miracles Aboagye, has refuted assertions that there are over 1000 political appointees of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (presidential staffers) at the Office of the President.
According to him, the majority of the workers at the presidency are public servants who were not appointed by the president.
Miracles Aboagye, who made these remarks in a Peace FM interview monitored by GhanaWeb, added that he is one of only 337 political appointees at the presidency.
He explained that people are saying there are about 1,000 presidential staffers because they think everybody who works at the presidency is a political appointee.
"It is never true. It's false. It is a complete falsehood. It's a lie. There are no 1000 presidential staffers at the Jubilee House... not everybody that works at the Office of the President is a presidential staffer.
“When you look at the Act that sets up the Office of the President and staffing, we have a category of staff we call presidential staffers. We have technical people, executive assistants, presidential aides, and so forth,” he said in Twi.
He added that 995 people currently work at the Jubilee House, and only 337 of these people are political appointees.
We went on to list the category of people who are now working at the presidency.
1. Minister of State at the Presidency - 1
2. Presidential Staffers – 45
3. Other political appointees - 291
These appointees include the Chief Executive Officers of entities such as the National Investment Bank (NIB), MASLOC, National Identification Authority (NIA), and Scholarship Secretariat as well as other workers of entities which are under the Office of the President.
4. Public sector employees – 658
These people are gardeners, cleaners, accounts, internal auditors, chief directors, investigators and other public servants under the various departments including the protocol unit, records unit, senior assistant computer programmers, secretarial staff, supply and material management class.
Others include workers of the Ghana Health Service, the Controller and Accountant General, the Audit Service, the Ghana National Fire Service and the Public Works Department.
