Ghana's new President John Kufuor late Wednesday named a series of ministers to his government.
Kufuor, 62, who was sworn in on Sunday ending 19 years in power by Jerry Rawlings, nominated 11 ministers, his office said in a fax to AFP.
Hackman Owusu-Agyermang was given the foreign affairs portfolio while Kwame Addo-Kufuor was nominated as defence minister and Alhaji Malik Yakubu Alhassan received the interior portfolio.
Yaw Osafo Maafo was named finance minister, Nana Akufo-Addo justice minister and Kofi Apraku trade and industry minister. Courage Quashigah got the agriculture portfolio and J.H. Mensah parliamentary affairs.
Kufuor, known as the "gentle giant" for his stature and shy manner, was elected in a second-round runoff on December 28 with 56.73 percent of the vote against 43.27 percent for John Atta Mills, the outgoing vice-president and Rawlings' successor designate.
Sunday's swearing in of Kufuor and his vice-president Aliju Mahama was the first transition from one democratically elected president to another since the former British colony achieved independence in 1957.
Rawlings, 53, a former flight lieutenant who took power in a coup on new year's eve 1981 and was elected president in democratic polls in 1992 and 1996, was not allowed to stand for a third term.
At his swearing-in Kufuor pledged to fight poverty and corruption, leading Ghana to prosperity, progress and peace.
Kufuor said he had been given "a mandate to renew our pride and self-esteem," following decades in which democratic governments have been the exception rather than the rule.
In general elections held at the same time as the first round of the presidentials on December 7, Kufuor's New Patriotic Party came within a whisker of winning an absolute majority with 100 members in the 200-seat parliament, to 92 for Rawlings' National Democratic Congress.
The NDC had a comfortable 133-seat majority in the outgoing parliament.
The ministerial nominees:
- J.H. Mensah, Majority leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs
- Yaw Osafo Maafo, Minister of Finance
- Nana Akufo-Addo, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice
- Gladys Asmah, Minister for Women's Affairs
- Hackman Owusu-Agyermang, Minister of Foreign Affairs
- Kwame Addo-Kufuor, Minister of Defense
- Kofi Apraku, Minister of Trade and Industry
- Courage Quashigah, Minister of Agriculture
- Alhaji Malik Yabuku Alhassan, Minister for the Interior
- Kwaku Afriyie, Minister of Lands and Forestry
- Dominic Fobih, Minister of Science, Technology and Environment.
