Defending 998 Jubilee House staffing figure sad – Franklin Cudjoe

The president of IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe, has described as saddening frantic efforts by government officials to justify the staggering 998 staff at the Jubilee House.

The number is some 220 staff more than the 778 employees presented to parliament by the erstwhile John Mahama administration in 2013.

According to the report released to Parliament on the staffing position of the Office of the President for the period January 7, 2017 to December 31, 2017, the office had nine Ministers of State, 27 presidential staffers, 256 Junior Political Appointees and 706 civil and public servants.

The tall list of staff has angered most Ghanaians with many accusing the President and his government of deceit and hypocrisy after the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in opposition castigated the Mahama administration for running a huge government of about 768 staff at the Flag Staff House, now Jubilee House.

Gabby Asare Otchere Darko, a senior member of the New Patriotic Party and a former Executive Director of policy think tank Danquah Institute (DI) in his justification of the 998 figure, disclosed that President Akufo-Addo prioritises results over a lean government.

“Akufo-Addo has never put lean government before a government that delivers. I recall in 2006, we were working on a speech and when I mentioned ‘lean government’, he told me point blankly that our situation in Ghana calls more for a well-resourced government machinery that can deliver,” he wrote on his Facebook Wall, a position the President of IMANI African observed was hypocritical and sad.

“I think the conversation has to be about whether we have efficient denominator to go on with,” he posited on Starr Today Monday.

“The sad thing though,” he bemoaned, “is that, the same persons who a while back were chastising previous governments for running a bloated bureaucracy are today defending the same bloated number by suggesting he [President Akufo-Addo] didn’t promise a lean government.”

“…That’s where my disappointed really lies, realizing that we have been double speaking and I don’t think it is fair. So anyhow you look at it my worry and disappointment is in the fact that they haven’t paid fidelity to the fact and it is of course worrying,” he added.