Large government not solution to Ghana’s problems – Gatsi

University of Cape Coast lecturer John Gatsi has said the large number of ministerial appointments is not the answer to Ghana’s problems.

President Nana Akufo-Addo has said that he needs all the 110 Ministers and Deputies he has appointed to succeed.

“I don’t believe that my government in the Fourth Republic has big numbers in view of the swollen challenges,” the President said in an interview with the Daily Graphic and Ghana Television to parry criticism about the size of his government, the biggest in the fourth republic.

According to him, the problems facing Ghana are huge, thus his need for all those he has appointed to fix the country.

“We have a problem and what is the best way? It is better to have men and women capable of serving the nation’s interests and to work to grow the economy… If I succeed, you will soon find out the brouhaha is nothing compared to the success,” President Akufo-Addo said to justify his 110 ministers.

By Mr Gatsi thinks the large government size will increase “expenditure and for that matter cost”.

The economist told Moro Awudu in an interview on Class FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Friday, March 17: “If we defend this large number of people as coming to solve the problem of the country, that will be a mirage that perhaps will be an insult to the good people of Ghana.

He admitted that Ghana needed a sizeable number of ministers to execute the mandate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government “but this is not a number that we can accept”.

He insisted: “The answer is not about the large numbers. We don’t need any theory to tell us that what is going on is wrong and not in the interest of expenditure management of the country.”