5 unsavory comments by government appointees that provoked public backlash in 2017

Giving out an information as a government appointee will be one of the most difficult things to do.

Any form of ambiguity attached to any information given out there may lead to a lot of public backlash.

Unfortunately, some government appointees could not manage their public utterances in public provoking a lot backlashes from the listening public.

Check out unsavory comments by some government appointees.

Mathew Opoku Prempeh

The minister of education and the Member of Parliament for Manhyia is the most visible minister this year, climbing a lot of platforms explain government’s free SHS policy implementation modules.

However, his public utterances in recent times are just unpardonable. In a news conference in Accra, the education Minister Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has asked senior high schools students to use polythene bag if they lack toilet facility in their schools.

George Ayisi Boateng

His comment will go down in history as the most discriminatory comment in any political statement.

It will be recalled that George Ayisi Boateng, Ghana’s High Commissioner to South Africa, addressing TESCON students stated that the NPP members are his priorities.



“Indeed I’m not boasting, but I’ve started meeting the NPP groups. Every weekend I meet some group members and I tell you if I had my way, every job opportunity that will come will go to a TESCON member before any other person. And I know my colleague appointees also have the same feeling except that because of IMF we cannot do anything now…,”

Carlos Ahenkorah

Carlos Ahenkorah, the Deputy Trade and Industry Minister was bold to tell the Ghanaians in the diaspora at a forum that government is tired of their continuous whining.

“Nobody likes whiners, people that spend all the time whining all the time really get on people’s nerves so stop whining,” the Deputy Minister said.

The comments angered some of the participants at the forum one of whom asked, “who travels 3,000 miles to be a whiner?”

A week after the public backlash that his comments attracted, the Deputy Minister had to apologise stating that his comments were not meant to cast aspersions but an expression of his experience as someone who lived in the Diaspora and has now returned to the country.

William Quaitoo

William Quaitoo was the former Deputy Agric minister until his own unsavory comments led him out of his job.

The deputy Minister speaking with Accra-based Starr FM described northerners as people who are “so difficult” to deal with.

“If anybody who is in the north and said his farm was destroyed by fall armyworm the person must prove it. Our brothers (in the North) it is so difficult to deal with them. I lived there for 27 years, I speak Dagbani like a Dagomba and all that. They are very difficult people. Nobody can substantiate. If anybody says that his farm was destroyed by armyworm, the person would have to come and prove it. We have no records of that. It’s just a way of taking money from the government: that’s what they do all the time…”

His comments attracted a backlash from a section of Ghanaians which led to his resignation.

Otiko Djaba

She was fortunate her numerous controversial statements never had any effect on her job. However one that invited public backlash is she describing her colleague minister as an albino.

In a radio interview on the subject of disability, the Minister, in defending the rights of the disabled, called the Minister of Information, Mustapha Hamid an albino.

“Persons with albinism in some places are not supposed to operate but our Minister of Information, Mustapha Hamid, is an albino.”

The intriguing bit about her comment, is the fact that, Mr. Hamid is said to have never accepted the tag of an albino on his persona.

She however later apologized to her colleague minister.