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A senior lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo seems to have been outraged by the arguments put up by people defending the huge size of President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government.
President Akufo-Addo on Wednesday released a 50-man list of persons he has nominated as deputy ministers in his government and also named four other persons as ministers of state.
Having already sworn in 36 sector ministers, 10 regional ministers and also nominated 10 deputy regional ministers, these new appointments, if they are all approved, will bring the total number of ministers to 110 making it the largest government ever in the history of Ghana.
The high number of appointments has caused a huge public outcry with many describing it as being in sharp contrast with President Akufo-Addo’s promise of lean government and protection for the public purse.
However, some New Patriotic Party (NPP) members have defended the appointments with Minister of Information, Mustapha Hamid going on record to state the President Akufo-Addo never promised a lean government.
According to Mr Hamid, with the current state of the economy and the enormous task ahead of the government, there was the need for more hands to help fulfil the President’s promises and hence the high number of ministers.
But speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen on Thursday, Professor Gyampo who is also a Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) was of the opinion that those defending the large size of the government were just being sycophantic.
According to him, it is only a hypocrite who will condemn the appointment of 84 ministers by former President John Mahama and turn around to defend President Akufo-Addo’s 110 ministers.
“The most annoying thing of all is those who criticised Mahama’s size of government and are justifying this 110. How can you criticize 84 Ministers under Mahama & appoint 110? Where is the principle? The hypocrisy of the politicians and sycophancy of their supporters must cease in this country”, he charged.
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