Size of Akufo-Addo’s government has reflected in performance – Kufour

Former President of Ghana, John Agyekum Kufour has joined the debate on President Akufo-Addo’s 110 ministerial appointees saying the NPP assembled an “elephant size government” for a very good reason. 

According to him, the huge number of Akufo-Addo’s appointees has resulted in better management of the country’s economy.

The size of President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government has been a topic of debate since 2017 when the appointments were announced.

While the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said the size of government was unnecessarily enormous, the government insists its appointees are delivering on their targets and hence improving the fortunes of the country.

Last year, President Nana Akufo-Addo’s main contender in the 2020 elections, former President John Mahama challenged the government to reduce the size of his government by about 40 appointees to ensure efficiency.

Opening up the matter again, President Kufour in an interview on Oman FM said his assessment of the performance of the current administration has lend credence to the defence of the huge government size.

“Nana Addo and his government are the ones continuing from where I stopped. When they came to power, they instituted a strategy and people did not understand. I’ve said that in four years a country like Ghana that is poor because of the mismanagement of some people, you need to use a wide array of people because I person cannot combine a lot of things.

“So when appointing his Ministers, if you take a sector like Transport previously, one Ministry covered roads, transport, rail, harbour and others how? One Minister cannot handle all these sectors. So when Akufo-Addo came he has divided them, there’s road, there’s transport, railway and harbour. People do not understand but in four years he realized that it doesn’t breakdown the Ministries and box all together under one person, after four years he wouldn’t have achieved much. Since he did that you can attest to the fact that it has been beneficial.”