Dr. Ransford Gyampo
A political scientist says President Mahama’s posturing is to be blamed for Vice President Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur’s perceived inefficiency at the Presidency in the last three years.
Dr. Ransford Gyampo said Ghanaians have not experienced the best potential of Mr Amissah-Arthur, who was on Monday re-nominated to partner President John Mahama in the 2016 election.
He said the Vice President’s credentials was touted as the best fit for a Vice President for President Mahama ahead of the 2012 elections but notes that not much have been seen of Mr Amissah-Arthur.
Dr. Gyampo, who is a Senior lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana said even the situation would be any different if President Mahama replace Mr Amissah-Arthur without changing his posturing.
“If they had gone out of their way to select a replacement and there hadn’t been a change in the posturing of the President and the President tries to outshine the vice president, then he would have the same complaint from the people,” he pointed out.
According to Dr. Gyampo, President Mahama has taken the shine out of Mr Amissah-Arthur; something that has triggered criticism with some critics describing him as ineffective vice president.
Speaking on TV3’s News @10 Monday night, Dr. Gyampo said: “In my view, he [Amissah-Arthur] wasn’t given much to do but why, I don’t know. I’m thinking we’ve not seen the best out of him yet simply because he has not been given much to do”.
He said although the country’s constitution doesn’t say much about role of the Vice President, it is important that President Mahama recognise his Vice President as a partner by giving him more responsibilities to shoulder as was done him when he [Mahama] was the Vice President for the late Prof. J.E. Atta-Mills.
“I think it will serve all of us as a nation well if the President delegates more so that he [Amissah-Arthur] can also carry out certain responsibilities to assist the President to run the nation,” he said.
“If that doesn’t happen, we would always have people coming out to say that he is the vice president that we don’t see much of; that he’s not doing anything,” he added.
He continued: “It’s important that going forward, the President also allows the Vice President more room and give him more space to carry out certain duties in a manner that would enable all of us to know and benefit from the potential of the number two person”.
Notwithstanding, he said Mr Amissah-Arthur’s re-nomination as the vice presidential candidate did not come as a surprise, noting that it would have been suicidal to have replaced him with any other person.
A replacement, he indicated, would have been an admission that the NDC government have failed in managing the economy considering that Mr Amissah-Arthur is the head of the economic management team.
“Politically, it would have been suicidal to have thought of changing and replacing the Vice President. The point is that, this is the man who heads the economic management team and so if you change him, then it becomes a tacit admission of the fact that you have failed managing the economy, and yet, this is the party that feels that things are going on well,” he said.
