Row over Mahama’s appointments and contracts unnecessary – Felix Ofosu Kwakye

Deputy minister of communications, Hon. Felix Ofosu Kwakye has described disputations over President Mahama’s last round of activities as “naked politicking”.

The outgoing Minister, who spoke to pressmen yesterday in Accra, said the basis for such concerns lacked fair, sound and objective analysis.

He opined that the contretemps over government’s business were the actions of some people who have chosen to View the president’s activities with political lenses.

According to Mr. Ofosu Kwakye, the same attitudes were portrayed by opposition forces against the president’s appointment of Supreme Court Justices as well the EC boss sometime back.

“So – what you see is a partisan trend, not an objective, fair, candid analysis of the situation”, he said.

Adding, “It appears to me that there’re some people who simply do not respect the decisions and mandate of president Mahama, and that to me is at the heart of this kind of politicking”.

Presidents must function until end of tenure

The minister expressed that the president was being unnecessarily challenged over basic routine functions that other presidents before him in the past, performed.

“It cannot be said that some presidents before or after him (John Mahama) can exercise their mandates up until the end of their tenure, but president Mahama must be denied same. It is wrong and disrespectful of Ghana’s constitution and cannot be accepted in the normal course of running this nation”, he asserted.

The Minister also remarked that the claims being made were equally influenced by ignorance on the parts of some party fanatics who think that once their party wins an election, the functions of the outgoing government must immediately cease.

Mahama still president

He stressed that Mr. John Mahama remained president of the republic of Ghana and as such was allowed by the constitution to carry on with government business until January 7 when he shall hand over to Nana Akuffo-Addo.

Mr. Ofosu Kwakye maintained that the processes leading to the review of the national service allowance and wages of public sector workers, begun months before the elections and therefore could not be described as a “last-minute” gambit.

Appointments and increment won’t cripple new gov’t

“In any case, how does the appointment of an NCCE boss or the review of allowances and wages inhibit or stop a new government from functioning?” he averred.

He said the NDC government in like manner inherited certain appointments and contracts from former president John Kuffuor, and lived with it for 8 years, thus was not a strange thing.

The minister argued that if NPP claimed they would restore the allowances of trainee teachers and nurses running into hundreds of millions of cedis, they must not be consternated by the slight increment of the recent salaries and allowances.

Mr Kwakye who said the cost implication of the increment in the National Service allowances was Ghc14 million per year, according to him, was not grave to hamper the functioning of the incoming government.