Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has lamented the increase in number of President Akufo-Addo’s government, revealing that it currently stands at an abominable 1, 048.
According to him, this was revealed after Parliament received the Annual Report on Staffing at the Office of the President for the year 2022 in compliance with the Presidential Office Act, 1993 (Act 463). He indicated that the preliminary analysis of the President’s 2021 and 2022 reports to Parliament reveal that he has increased the number of political appointees from 337 in 2021 to 361 in 2022.
“Despite Ghana’s current economic crisis which has seen us defaulting on loans for the first time in over 50 years, undergoing a historic debt restructuring, seeking an IMF bailout and triggering the most abysmal performance in international credit ratings, the total staff strength under the Akufo-Addo presidency for 2022 now stands at an abominable 1,048. This has gone north from 995 in 2021 — an overall increase by 53.”
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
Mr Ablakwa indicated that consistent with President Akufo-Addo’s “regrettably intransigent, insensitive and stony-hearted character”, he has contemptuously ignored the avalanche of demands on him to reduce the size of his government and has by this latest Annual Report unconscionably increased his already obscenely bloated government. He emphasized that the President has therefore “obstinately added 24” more political appointees to his staff at the Presidency.
Additionally, he noted that the category of public and civil servants at the Presidency has also gone up from 658 in 2021, to 687 in 2022.
“It must be emphasized that Ghana has never experienced this level of presidential recklessness in our entire history. It is unprecedented for the list of staffers at the presidency to hit and exceed a thousand.”
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
NDC MP laments Government’s bloated number of political appointees
From available records in Parliament, the North Tongu legislator highlighted that the highest number of comparative political appointees ever reported in the entire Fourth Republic was 70 in 2012 which declined remarkably to 31 by 2015. In reality, he explained that President Akufo-Addo has added an incredible 291 political appointees to the NDC’s highest number – which is a spike of some 415.7%
“I will have to point out that from parliamentary records, the highest number of combined staffers (political and non-political) before the Akufo-Addo post 2017 era was 758 recorded in 2002 under President Kufuor. President Akufo-Addo breaks this record by some 38.2%.”
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
Expressing his disappointment, Mr Ablakwa revealed that he is “terribly pained” to acknowledge that the treacherous conduct by some of the parliamentary colleagues in last Friday’s secret vote on the President’s ministerial and judicial nominees, has obviously emboldened the “unhinged” President to continue on his path of perdition.
Sadly, he noted that thanks to a few traitors, the majority of NDC MPs appear to be losing credibility on this all-important matter.
“I can only hope that at this reckless rate, an emboldened President Akufo-Addo does not record over 1,500 staffers by the time he leaves office in 2025. May God save our Republic.”
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
There have been several calls by the NDC MPs and major stakeholders in the country for government to reduce its number of political appointees, especially considering the current state of the economy. This became more apparent during the voting by parliament on government’s ministerial nominees as the opposition NDC MPs in parliament felt betrayed by the conduct of some of its members in voting in favor of the said nominees.
Member of parliament for Builsa South, Clement Apaak; MP for Ningo-Prampram, Sam Nartey George and MP for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, are some of the MPs who have registered their displeasure at the turn of event on the voting of these ministerial appointments.
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