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The Dean of the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College (GAFCSC), Dr Vladimir Antwi-Danso, urged President Akufo-Addo to consider creating a smaller government during his second term.
He said a lean government would cut spending and ensure efficiency through hard work.
Dr Antwi-Danso made the appeal during an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra.
The dean said that the 1992 Constitution stipulated that: “There will be a cabinet which will consist of the president, the vice president and no less than 10 and no more than 19 ministers of state”.
He explained that the Constitution requires that there should not be more than 19 ministers, but beyond that, the president could appoint additional ministers (who are not members of the cabinet) according to his agenda. .
He said the previous Akufo-Addo administration had around 110 ministers simply because of the type of program they had in place to run; saying they needed all these ministers to complete this program.
However, when the 16 new regions were created, other regional ministers and their deputies were also appointed by the president in 2019.
Dr Antwi-Danso said it was always very difficult to advise the government on the number of ministers, but a little bit of political science would show that the larger the number of ministers; the more government spending, the more duplication of functions and the more bureaucracy.
“And so, many intellectuals have always pleaded for a lean government; a lean government, i.e. having a smaller cabinet / fewer ministers, but that’s ideal.
He said Ghanaians would always be torn between a lean government as an ideal and the need to have a large cabinet and a large number of ministers to fulfill an agenda.
“I will always opt for a lean government, knowing full well the debauchery that we have in our system in our part of the world.
“In Africa, there is so much overspending, and the more you open up ministries, the more you are forced into spending spree,” he said.
Dr Antwi-Danso said he predicted that President Akufo-Addo’s next cabinet was not going to be as big as the previous one; for it seemed that the government’s program for the first term had been largely respected.
He noted that ministries such as railways could be merged with other ministries now to have one ministry for many of them.
“Depending on the government’s agenda, I expect the next ministries to be smaller than what we had in the previous government,” he said.
The dean suggested that the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of Roads and Highways and all those allied in the field of infrastructure be grouped into one ministry and called the Ministry of Roads and Highways or the Ministry of Infrastructure; adding that it would only cost the minister and his deputy to work harder than maybe if they were toppled.
He said the only thing that was debilitating about that same Constitution was that the President must appoint the majority of his ministers to Parliament; adding that “and it is already quite debilitating, it is a parliamentarian, it is a minister and all the kindness of things”.
“And so, maybe we need to get it out sometimes and it broadens the departments a bit. But overall, we learn from our experiences. ”
He recalled that then-presidential candidate John Agyekum Kufuor blasted his predecessor government for having a larger government of around 80 ministers, however, when he took office he saw that ‘he needed more, then he apologized to the nation.
“Then we have a government that came with 110 ministers, all in the name of good governance,” he said.
Dr Antwi-Danso noted that depending on President Akufo-Addo’s agenda in his second term, Ghanaians would soon see the number of ministers he would appoint; stating that “but I don’t expect very big ministries this time”.
The dean argued that a lean government was ideal, but where there was some sort of obvious need to create ministries for the execution of a certain agenda, then Ghanaians should allow the government to do so.
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