Panic Hits Gov’t Institutions as More CEO’s Face Sack

THE PUBLISHER can confirm that Chief Executive Officers (CEO’s) of government institutions are sitting on tenterhooks, barely 48 hours after the President, Nana Akufo-Addo, sacked four appointees on Wednesday.

The CEO’s, jittery as they appear, are dazed particularly when the president, clothed with the power to hire and fire has kept the next list of appointees to be axed close to his chest.

According to the paper’s sources, the president is most likely to slash the size of his ministers and their deputies from 110 to 87. Some heads of various security agencies could be sent packing latest by Monday.

The shake-up is likely to hit the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) within a few days, our sources say.

A letter communicating what has largely been described as “season” of termination of appointments on Wednesday noted that the action to remove the four was part of efforts by the President to restructure the public sector.

It may be recalled that the Dr. Felix Kwaku Anyah, Chief Executive Officer of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, is the latest person to have lost his position.

It follows the decision by President Akufo-Addo to terminate the appointment of the experienced health professional who served as the head of the country’s premier health facility for just a year.

But the staff of Korle-Bu are incensed over the dismissal of the founder of the Holy Trinity Hospital in Accra.

In a bid to convey their resentment to government, some staff and sympathisers yesterday, besieged the Hospital’s administration, threatening a strike.

The aggrieved workers, clad in arm bands and holding placards with inscriptions, “Politicians, Leave Korle Bu Alone,” “No Dr. Anyah, No Korle Bu,” and “Why Punish The Good?” amongst others, are demanding the reinstatement of Dr Anyah.

Earlier, the President, through his Executive Secretary, Nana Asante Bediatuo, announced termination of the appointments of Paul Asare Ansah, Director General of Ghana Ports and Habours Authority; Gifty Klenam, Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Export Promotion Authority and Alfred Obeng Boateng, Managing Director of Bulk Oil Storage and Transport Company.

Mr. Asare Ansah is to be replaced by Mr. Michael Achagwe Luguje, who is currently the Secretary-General, Port Management Association for West and Central Africa, based in Nigeria.

Mr. Obeng Boateng’s reign as BOST Managing Director has been dogged by one controversy and another relating to the sale of contaminated fuel to some private organisations.

He was, however, cleared by Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), according to Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko who had set up a committee to investigate the sale.

He has been directed to vacate his office by close of day, Friday, June 8.

Gifty Klenam, and her deputy, Sayibu Akilu are said to be in dispute with each other for a while now, a development which is having a ripple effect on the Ghana Export Promotion Authority(GEPA).

GEPA is strategically placed to drive the government’s one-district-one-factory programme to project government’s agenda for creating jobs and boost the country’s non-traditional exports.

By: Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson