Reactions continue to pour in over the latest Ministerial reshuffle by President Nana Akufo-Addo.
This is coming hours after the President changed the chairs of some of his main Ministers, including the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
You would recall that in 2022, over eighty Members of Parliament of the governing NPP asked the President to sack Ken Ofori-Atta for what they called his failure to turn the country’s economic fortunes around.
Well, today, the President through his communications Director at the presidency announced a major shakeup that took away Ken Ofori-Atta from Office.
Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has also been reassigned with Interior Minister Ambrose Dery replaced by Henry Quartey who used to be his deputy in the first Akufo Addo administration.
Reacting to this in an interview with Beatrice Adu on 3FM’s Midday News, governance expert, Professor Baffour Agyeman Duah said that the reshuffle has come too little, too late.
“Certainly, I’m sure everybody is going say this reshuffle has come too late and in fact too little also. You see there was a time that whole nation was ready for a change and yet the President was a bit impervious to public sentiments and therefore was not responsive to that.
We have barely ten months to go for the end of the govt……so those who have just been appointed…., I’m not sure that they have time to think and renovate or innovate….I don’t think it would make any positive impact,” Prof Agyeman Duah said.
Meanwhile, the Minority in Parliament has also described the reshuffle as ‘injury time remix’.
According to them, “This is a mere remix of the Akufo-Addo and Alhaji Bawumia’s failed government. This injury time remix is insipid and uninspiring.”
This is contained in a press release dated February 14 and signed by the Minority Leader, Casiel Ato Forson.
“It is also too little too late, coming barely nine (9) months to the exit of the government. Neither will it solve the suffering and hardships confronting the people of Ghana as a result of the bad governance and massive uncontrolled corruption of the Akufo-Addo and Alhaji Bawumia’s government.
“These injury time reserves, who have been on the bench for more than seven years without warm-up, cannot make any meaningful impact in the remaining nine (9) months to salvage the sinking ship and the massive economic mess created by Alhaji Bawumia and his economic mismanagement team,” Dr Ato Forson wrote.
He asserted that, “The tenure of this government has been characterised by excessive borrowing, unsustainable debt, an economic crisis, high appetite for taxes, poor governance, reckless and wasteful expenditures, siphoning of state resources into private pockets of government appointees, as well as state capture by family and friends of the President and his Vice.
For the records, President Akufo-Addo has at all material times remained obstinate and defiant when the subject of reshuffle came up for discussion. For example, he rebuffed nearly 100 NPP Members of Parliament who demanded the immediate resignation of outgoing Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta,” the Minority Leader stated.
Amin Adam replaces Ofori-Atta as Finance Minister, Oppong Nkrumah now heads Works and Housing
He bemoaned the fact that, “President Akufo-Addo also did not heed calls from the vast majority of Ghanaians who publicly urged him to reshuffle his government as a result of the non-performance of his Cabinet.”
The NDC Minority believes that, “the best way to end the suffering and hardships of Ghanaians would have been for both President Akufo-Addo and Vice President Alhaji Bawumia to resign.”
By Beatrice Adu