Cynthia Morrison Also Falling On Own Sword?

The Minister responsible for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Cynthia Mamle Morrison, is fast slipping into the ‘league of ministers’ whose public utterances had in one way or the other embarrassed the government of the day.

Before her, we had the Senior Minister, Finance Minister, Education Minister, and Energy Minister, running their mouths at various times to the discomfort of the presidency.

Ken Ofori-Atta was flayed for wishing that the SHS policy was rather based on affordability. He was again hot for allegedly describing the victims of Menzgold, who lost their life’s savings to the gold collecting company, as ‘victims of their own greed’.

We then had Peter Amewu claiming prematurely that the falling over of some GRIDCo towers in Tema in March, 2019, was the handiwork of his political opponents. He again said, ahead of investigations, that the PDS deal was suspended because it was fraudulent.

As for Mathew Opoku Prempeh, his claims that the 2019 BECE self-placement fiasco, which brought untold hardships to many parents, was orchestrated by the opposition NDC was described as a bit unsophisticated. The CSE ‘wahala’ is currently hanging around his neck.

We also know that Akufo-Addo’s government is still bleeding from Osafo Maafo’s alibi, to the effect that Aisha Huan’s deportation was necessitated by the $2billion Sino-Hydro deal.

It is in the light of this trend that THE NEW PUBLISHER finds the Gender Minister’s latest gaffe one more too many.

Back in January, 2019, she reportedly proclaimed that the kidnapped Takoradi girls, whose story is still a scar on the national psyche, were not dead, and that, they would join their parents in less than no time.

Then last week, she flared up on national television, insisting she saw nothing wrong with the CSE syllabus. Inferring that Ghanaians were hypocritical, she asked parents to stop playing the ostrich by pretending their kids did not know sex, or that they (parents) were not aware of the ‘supi’ (lesbianism) practice that abound in many High Schools.

This is where we have a concern about the Minister. Human as we are, we may slip once a while in our presentations, but when it goes beyond an isolated incident, then we have every cause to worry.

In our candid view, Ms. Morrison seems not to understand the difference between the period when she was a mere radio/TV panelist, defending the NPP on every issue, and her current role in government. As a Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, we thought she would have been the first person to feel alarmed by the SCE matter, unless maybe, she wants to tell the world that she had supported (and still supports) the ‘supi’ practice in our schools.

She is way above a party apparatchik, and she must know that her pronouncements can damage her (or government’s) reputation beyond repair. Now that the President has dissociated himself from the SCE, and ‘swore’ it would not happen under his Presidency, where does Cynthia Mamle Morrison stand?

It is our belief that President Akufo-Addo considered Competence, Experience and Loyalty as his main requirements before appointing her, and she must not disappoint him.

What we cannot stand, however, is this practice, where political appointees, who are paid to head sensitive sectors of the economy, are playing chess with the minds of the people.