Former Deputy Minister of Transport and aide to President John Dramani Mahama, Madam Joyce Bawah Mogtari has described Ghana’s Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta as “a walking illegality.”

Joyce Bawah suggested that the incompetence of Ken Ofori-Atta has rendered Ghana bankrupt and hence, his continuous stay in office is unjustifiable.

Besides, Joyce Bawah questioned the leadership of President Akufo-Addo who appears to have refused to act despite the numerous calls for the removal of the Finance Minister.

“If leadership does not take responsibility, everything else is hoax; if leadership does not show leadership when it’s needed the most, everything else is hoax. If we have walking illegality described himself as our Finance Minister we know that everything wrong with our society is also wrong with our leadership.”
Joyce Bawah, Aid to President Mahama

She bemoaned that the continuous stay of Ken Ofori-Atta in office is crippling our economy and “moving our stock exchange in the wrong direction.”

Citing other countries as examples, Madam Bawah claimed that reshuffling Ministers have created a lot of difference elsewhere and so she wondered why the President does not want to do same here in Ghana.

“In some jurisdictions, even a slight reshuffle will cause a certain positive outlook for the stock exchange of those countries. All of our key indicators are walking in the opposite direction and it is insightful that at least 60% of Ghana’s population are moving in the wrong direction. And I’m sure that when I listened to President Akufo-Addo, he himself alluded to that fact.”
Joyce Bawah, Aid to President Mahama

She intimated that there were enough plusible reasons for Ken Ofori-Atta to be have been sacked long ago and the fact the he is still in office suggests that Ghana has a leadership problem.

For instance, Madam Bawah posited that when there was enough grounds to sack Ofori-Atta when he “announced on the floor of Parliament that his company alone made about 151million as income for eurobond transactions.”

She added, “everything about this life is about leadership,” insinuating that Ofori-Atta is in office today and Ghana’s economy is at the verge of collapsing all because President Akufo-Addo is failing to provide the right leadership needed to salvage the situation.

The Finance Minister Must Go Campaign

On Tuesday, 25th October 2022, the day Parliament returned from recess, a section of the majority caucus in Parliament held a press conference demanding that President Akufo-Addo sacks Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta and the Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, Charles Adu-Boahen.

That very day, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu informed the Speaker that his caucus had filed a censure motion for the removal of the Finance Minister. They filed on the basis that Ken Ofori-Atta has performed poorly in the management of Ghana’s economy.

The Speaker did not delay at all in admitting the motion. During Parliament’s sitting on Thursday, October 27th, 2022, the Speaker confirmed that he had received the motion and the motion was duly admitted.

However, in the NPP majority group, a statement signed by Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, claimed that the Majority had “agreed to accede to the President’s appeal” to allow Ofori-Atta stay in office until the ongoing IMF negotiations are over and the budget is read in November, 2022.

That not withstanding, Kyei-Mensah Bonsu has insinuated on several platforms that even though MPs in his caucus agreed to the President’s request and are willing to go by it, not all of them are happy with it.

Recently, all MPs on the majority side, according to the Majority Leader, actually want Ken Ofori-Atta out.

Meanwhile, if Ofori-Atta is still office by 10th November, 2022, the day the Minority is expecting the vote of censure motion to be conducted, the minority caucus will definitely seek to take advantage of the seeming tension in the majority group by luring some of the MPs on the Majority side to vote in favour of the motion.