Kwasi Prempeh Criticizes ‘Partisan Appointments’ To Governing Boards

Renowned lawyer, Professor Kwasi Prempeh has expressed concerns about the appointment of persons to Governing Boards of state institutions based on political affiliations.

According to him, given the important roles these Boards play in the effective running of these state institutions, it was imperative that appointments to such positions be made based on merit.

Prof. Prempeh accused successive governments, including the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration of failing to sanitize the appointment processes, thus encouraging sympathizers of their parties to scramble for appointments on governing boards.

Prof. Kwesi Prempeh was speaking at an event organized by the Center for the Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) on Thursday to assess Akufo-Addo’s one year in office.

“CEO appointments, you would expect will be more meritocratic, somewhat competitive in this sector because many companies in this sector are also competing with private sector companies in the same market. Did we see any change from the status quo in terms of CEO appointments? Definitely not. We saw a lot of open scramble for positions among partisans, there was no meritocratic competition that we observed,” he said.

“Partisan criteria seemed to be the name of the game. Not to say that every one of the people appointed CEO are unqualified. We are talking more about the process by which we got them appointed and the process remains closed, opaque and a partisan process which is sometimes played out in the open. Party loyalists see these positions as rewards for contribution towards the campaign or election success.”

Why partisan appointments

Supporters of political parties that win elections often feel a sense of entitlement, demanding to be brought into the core government machinery.

There’s often intense pressure put on government’s to appoint persons who were seen to be major contributors to the election victories.

This phenomenon has been heavily criticized by civil society organisations in the country who insist that such practices to be stopped because it could breed corruption.

Source: Citifmonline