A Governance Expert, Professor Baffuor Agyemang Duah, has said the buck stops with the president when it comes to policy decisions and how those policies should be implemented.
The Vice President, he noted, is not the one who makes the last call although he can make proposals.
To that end, Prof Agyemang Duah said Ghanaians are going to determine whether or not Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia should be blamed for the failures of the Akufo-Addo administration.
“Ghanaians will use their own judgment to determine whether [Dr Bawumia] should inherit the sins of the president. [Dr Bawumia] has a herculean task of convincing Ghanaians that he is a different person…he is articulate and he can state his point,” he said on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday February 10.
Professor Baffuor Agyemang Duah earlier explained the difficulties that people have in decoupling Dr Mahamudu Bawumia from the failures of some of the government’s policies.
He explained that although the vice president, generally, does not make the last call, Dr Bawumia is the one who has over the last years been vocal on government policies.
Therefore, people have associated him with these policies, making it difficult to insulate him from blame in the face of challenges.
His comments come at a time when the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) said that the EMT does not have decision-making powers.
Dr Bawumia said they only advise the cabinet. As head of the EMT, he had been blamed for the economic challenges that Ghana is facing.
Delivering his address at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) on Wednesday February 7, Dr Bawumia said “Thankfully, I was appointed as chair of the EMT, as a sub-committee to Cabinet we do not have decision-making powers, but I am very proud of the quality of advice we have been providing over the years to Cabinet.
“As vice president, I was asked by the president to assist in solving the problems that were inhibiting the economy. my approach was to help formalize the economy through digitalization as stated in our 2016 manifesto.”
But speaking on the News 360 on TV3 Thursday February 8, Prof Agyemang Duah said “The reality is that generally, vice presidents do not make the last call, they provide advice, and the buck simply stops on the desk of the president which has been the reality of all vice presidents in republican states.
“But in this particular case, it seems to me Dr Bawumia was very vocal, in fact, in a way being loquacious in articulating the economic policies of this government therefore, a lot of people look at him as spearheading the government’s economic policies and therefore if there is a failure in those policies it has been difficult for many people to delink him,” he said.