Hon. Kwabena Mintah-Ankadoh
Two months after Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was elected president on a promise to “fix” Ghana, Hon. Kwabena Mintah-Ankadoh thinks a policy vacuum would bring decision-making to a halt, thereby hampering everything governance.
The immediate past Deputy Minister of Land and Natural Resources, demanded to know the names of President Akufo-Addo’s cabinet ministers out of the thirty six vetted and approved by parliament.
“Who are those making it into cabinet”, he quizzed subtly in a telephone conversation with Host of Okay FM’s morning show Kwame Nkrumah Tikese.
The Juaboso’s legislature noted that Article 76 of the Ghana’s constitution states clearly the number of persons that forms cabinet. ‘There shall be a Cabinet which shall consist of the President, the Vice-President and not less than ten and not more than nineteen Ministers of State’, according to Article 76 clause 1.
‘But some of the president high-flying plans may end-up gathering dust in rudderless ministries while entrepreneurs and businessmen look on in vain as economy reels from the decline in currency”. He argued that it is the responsibility of cabinet to discuss government policies before making them available to parliament and the public as a whole. ‘Cabinet is not a joke, they should have debated and regularized things before going to parliament with it’, he noted.
For Mintah-Ankadoh, the constitution enjoined the president to put together a cabinet that would not exceed nineteen (19) members. “The only way we can assure that the right thing is done, is to know who and who are cabinet members. ‘If we do not know our cabinet ministers, who can we tell if the constitutional requirement is flouted,” he charged
Mr. Ankandoh sued President Akufo-Addo to bring to parliament a Constitutional Instrument (CI) that establishes the newly created ministries. “For instance the minister for an alien ministry like Monitoring and Evaluation told the Appointments Committee of Parliament that he was going to be part of government. A ministry that has no locus in our system,” Ankadoh stated.
