Akufo-Addo To Grill His Ministers Today

President Akufo Addo will today [Monday] assess the performance of his Ministers of State for the one year they have been in office.

The President is expected to have face-to-face conversations with each of his appointees in an appraisal.

The evaluation sessions will have the Vice President, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, and the Chief of Staff Akosua Frema Opare also in attendance to assist the President to undertake the process which will help inform him about the achievement or otherwise of his ministers.

The appraisal, originally scheduled for last Friday was rescheduled to today.

It comes on the back of a report presented to the President by the Minister for Monitoring and Evaluation Dr Anthony Akoto Osei on the performance of government appointees and programs.

Dr Anthony Akoto Osei in an interview with Citi News said, the exercise is the president’s internal tool to ensure the government stay on track to achieve its promises.

“He is going to have a face to face interview with each minister. He is using that as an internal tool to measure progress in terms of our targets, how far we are going, where we are going wrong, putting in corrective measures just to make sure we stay on track. I myself I’ll be assessed,” he said.

Monitoring and Evaluation Minister, Dr. Anthony Akoto-Osei

Monitoring and Evaluation Ministry role

The creation of the Monitoring and Evaluation portfolio by the President at the beginning of his tenure was met with criticism by a section of the public who cited duplication of functions since most Ministries already have such units within their structure.

But the government rejected such claims indicating such a role is necessary for tracking the implementation of government policies and programs.

The President said the Ministry of Monitoring and Evaluation was set up to consolidate government’s activities by ensuring appointees live up to set targets.

President Akufo-Addo, in all, has 110 people serving as ministers, ministers of state and deputies in his administration, the highest in the country’s history.

Out of the total 110, 20 are Regional Ministers and their Deputies, 40 ministers for various ministries, with 50 deputies.

In Jul7 2017, Dr. Akoto Osei had said his outfit will by October 2017 give an account of the performances of the various ministries towards achieving set targets.

According to him, at the time, the ministries had already submitted reports detailing their key priority areas to be assessed.

He further intimated that, targets for the Finance and Energy ministries will be paramount in the assessment.