Nana Addo To Replace Deputy Bog Governor With Ace Ankomah’s Wife

..In appreciation of Ace’ help

The storied nepotism characterizing Nana Akufo-Addo’s government, in which family members, friends, ex girlfriends and baby mamas of the President continue to get called up to be regime actors, is set to spiral once more.

President Akufo-Addo will soon replace a second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) with the wife of an amigo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) regime.

Mrs. Josephine Anan Ankomah, wife of popular pro NPP lawyer, Ace Ankomah, has been penciled as a replacement for Dr. Johnson Asiamah, second Deputy Governor of the BoG.

Sources say Mrs. Akomah, who is the Managing Director for Ecobank Gambia, has already been alerted about the intent to move her from the job that has dislocated her to far away Gambi, to the upper echelons of the BoG, on home turf.

President Akufo-Addo is said to be angling for the removal of Dr. Johnson Asiamah in a bid to show gratitude to lawyer Ace Ankomah for support that he had given the NPP while the party was in the trenches of opposition.

Ace is on record to have lamented that he scarcely sees his wife.

Even as the party is in power, Ace is noted to have publicly supported the government bravely – gallantry that qualifies him to share in the spoils of power which a grateful President Akufo-Addo has made efforts to share, leading to the appointment of the most distended government in the history of Ghana.

Dr. Asiamah has been seen as a natural target by the NPP government because the man had been appointed Second Deputy Governor of the BoG by former President Mahama – his appointment had taken place in April 2016.

But as Mrs. Josephine Ankomah remains on cue to join the over-bloated, kwashiorkor government of the NPP, there is a little problem – the legal implication of removing a serving BoG Deputy Governor without legitimate grounds.

To scale this hurdle, sources say the NPP government is to propositioning Dr. Johnson Asiamah with a juicy package that will require him to step down with all benefits due him intact, in addition to an arrangement for him to continue to receive his official salary as Deputy BoG Governor.

This arrangement, which will assault wasteful cost on the public purse, is not new to the NPP government which got substantive Governor, Dr. Abdul-Nashiru Issahaku, to resign earlier in the year on the basis of similar arrangement.

Dr. Issahaku, a childhood friend of Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, had agreed to resign his position as BoG Governor in March this year after the NPP government had arranged for him to get his entitlements and also continue to draw his salary.

As the remainder of his abrogated contract was three years, Dr. Issahaku will consequently, continue to draw the salary that he took as BoG Governor until the three years are over.

In effect therefore, the Akufo-Addo government is paying double salaries in respect of the BoG Governorship, with Dr. Ernest Addison, the man who replaced Dr. Issahaku as Governor, drawing monthly salary concurrently with Dr. Issahaku.

Sources say that it is this wasteful arrangement that would have been prevented if the Governor had been allowed to serve out his mandate. This unnecessary financial albatross with Dr. Issahaku is what the NPP government is now making moves to replicate with Dr. Johnson Asiamah.

Dr. Asiamah will, like Dr. Abdul Nashiru Issahaku, be made to step down as the BoG’s Second Deputy Governor under an arrangement that will see him continue to draw his salary as deputy even though he will not be working.

The specter in the air therefore is that tax payers are about to be saddled with the situation where scarce cedis are doled out monthly to former Governor and Deputy Governor of the BoG even though they are not in office. And they will enjoy the free money along with appointees in their places who will also be paid monthly.

This wastage is due to the fact that the NPP government wants to, at all cost, appoint a friend of the regime into office as Deputy Governor of the BoG after it had removed a serving Governor.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Josephine Anan Ankomah’s appointment into government will make her an extension of what has come to be termed as “Akufocracy” – government of the Akuffos, by the Akuffos, for the Akuffos – with back pass to buddies, girlfriends, ex girlfriends and baby mamas of the President.

It is not clear if Mrs. Anan Ankomah has already tendered in her resignation to leave her job as MD of Ecobank Gambia, but her looming appointment to the BoG job is may be unconnected to the President’s intent to spare Ace Ankomah of too many cold nights.

Ace is on record to have lamented that because of his wife’s job location abroad, he tends to see her once a month like a paycheck, even though the Ankomas have two girls and one boy together.