President John Dramani Mahama has nominated Klottey Korle Member of Parliament Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings and Bawku Central MP Mahama Ayariga as Ministers of State, and reassigned two serving ministers, in a statement issued from the Jubilee House in Accra on Friday, August 7, 2026.
The President submitted the two names to Parliament through the Speaker under Article 78(1) of the 1992 Constitution, which requires prior parliamentary approval before a ministerial appointment takes effect.
The announcement lands a day after the country closed a week of national mourning marking one year since the military helicopter crash that killed the substantive Ministers for Defence and for Environment, Science and Technology, and it ends the longest ministerial vacancy of Mahama’s second term.
Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings Takes the Environment Portfolio
The statement, signed by Felix Kwakye Ofosu, Spokesperson to the President and Minister for Government Communications, names Dr Agyeman-Rawlings as Minister-designate for Environment, Science and Technology, and Ayariga as Minister-designate for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs.
Dr Agyeman-Rawlings enters government for the first time after nearly a decade on the backbenches. She won Klottey Korle in 2016 and has held the seat through three consecutive terms, chairing the Committee on Security and Intelligence in the Ninth Parliament while sitting on the Environment, Science and Technology Committee and the Gender and Children Committee.
A medical doctor by training and the eldest daughter of the late President Jerry John Rawlings, she built her early public profile around environmental campaigning in Accra before entering electoral politics.
Her name had circulated for months in speculation about the Defence portfolio, driven partly by her security committee work and by advocacy for a woman to lead the ministry for the first time.
The Presidency has instead placed her at Environment, Science and Technology, a ministry that now carries the government’s anti-galamsey enforcement agenda alongside its climate and research mandate.
A Year of Caretaker Arrangements at Defence
The two nominations close a gap that opened on August 6, 2025, when a Ghana Air Force Z-9 helicopter travelling from Accra to Obuasi came down in the Adansi area of the Ashanti Region, killing all eight people aboard.
Dr Edward Kofi Omane Boamah, Minister for Defence, and Dr Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, died alongside acting Deputy National Security Coordinator Alhaji Limuna Mohammed Muniru, NDC Second National Vice Chairman Dr Samuel Sarpong, former parliamentary candidate Samuel Aboagye, and three air force crew members. The delegation had been travelling to an event on illegal mining.
The President named Finance Minister Dr Cassiel Ato Forson acting Minister for Defence and Lands and Natural Resources Minister Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah acting Minister for Environment within a day of the crash.
Twelve months later, both arrangements were still running. The Minority Caucus, led by Alexander Afenyo-Markin, pressed repeatedly for substantive appointments, and governance analysts questioned the logic of parking a security ministry with a finance minister already carrying the country’s economic brief rather than with the Interior Minister.
Kwakye Ofosu maintained through the period that the timing of any appointment remained the President’s prerogative.
Kenneth Gilbert Adjei Returns to Familiar Ground
The reassignments move Hon. Kenneth Gilbert Adjei from Works, Housing and Water Resources to Defence, and Ahmed Ibrahim from Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs to Works, Housing and Water Resources.
Adjei arrives at Burma Camp with prior exposure to the ministry. He served as Deputy Minister for Defence between 2015 and 2017 under Mahama’s first administration before returning to government in February 2025 to run Works, Housing and Water Resources. In that role he oversaw coastal protection works at Komenda, Ningo-Prampram and Elmina, the revival of the stalled Saglemi housing project, and the Blekusu sea defence programme. He inherits a defence agenda that includes armed forces modernisation, a planned recruitment drive, and border security pressures along Ghana’s northern frontier with Burkina Faso.
Ahmed Ibrahim moves to Works, Housing and Water Resources after eighteen months at Local Government, where he handled assembly members’ allowances, the district assembly system and Ghana’s representation at the World Urban Forum in Baku.
The Banda MP has sat in Parliament since 2009 and previously served as Deputy Majority Whip.
Ayariga’s Nomination Reopens the Majority Leadership Question
Ayariga’s nomination carries a consequence the statement does not address. He has led the Majority Caucus and served as Leader of Government Business since January 2025, taking over from Ato Forson when Forson moved to the Finance Ministry. He was on the floor as recently as July 31 defending the 2026 Mid-Year Budget Review against Minority criticism.
Recent practice suggests the two roles do not sit together.
Dr Ato Forson vacated the leadership on becoming Finance Minister, and Ahmed Ibrahim gave up the Deputy Majority Whip position when he took Local Government in 2025. If that pattern holds, the National Democratic Congress will need to name a new Majority Leader before the House resumes.
Parliament Decides Next
Nothing takes effect until the Appointments Committee vets both nominees and the House votes.
Parliament adjourned on July 31 after the mid-year budget debate, so the vetting timetable will depend on when the Speaker recalls the House or the committee convenes.
The reshuffle is the first substantial reorganisation of Mahama’s ministerial team since he took office in January 2025, and the statement’s phrasing leaves room for further changes. For a government entering the second half of its first two years, the appointments settle a question that has followed it since last August.
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