Govt Lack Quality Advisors - Senior Minister

Senior Minister, Mr J.H. Mensah on Friday said that the government lacks quality and competent advisors to enable it formulate good policies for efficient and effective running of the country.

He said "There are virtually no quality advisors in the system, at all, and those that we have, we do not even have training programmes for them, hence their inability to help government fashion out good policies and programmes’’.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview after a sod cutting ceremony for the construction of a five billion-cedi Economics Department, Annex at the University of Ghana, Legon, Mr Mensah said "when we get down to the nitty-gritty, one realised that people only paid lip service to the development of human capital formation. He said at present the public service enjoys very low priority when it comes to training or human capacity building yet one constantly hear every now and then the need for human resource development in the sector.

Mr Mensah was commenting on a statement made by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Kwadwo Assenso-Okyere that policy decisions in the country most at times, are determine by politicians who often lack the expertise. Explaining further, Mr Mensah specifically mentioned the dearth of Economic Experts in the country and said, "The world would not make excuses for Ghana so we must as people with the needed capacity work to assist our own selves for the good of the country."

Professor Assenso-Okyere said there is the need for government to start recognising the technocrats and experts in the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes. He called on government to make use of its economic experts and said the construction of the department where a place would be allotted to the training Economic Policy Management (EPM) personnel.