Ghana doesn’t need more than 19 Ministries – Economist

Chartered Economist, Gideon Amissah says President Akufo-Addo’s government for his 2nd term must drastically cut down on its number of Ministries.

According to him, regardless of the large number of Ministries/Ministers in the last four years being described as the ‘winning team’, the President should not appoint an equally high number of Ministers in his 2nd term.

Gideon Amissah said, “We should not maintain the exact number of Ministries we had in President Akufo-Addo’s first term. The constitution says cabinet should not be more than ten (10) of them”.

He however added that because of changing times and growth in the country’s population, the core Ministries of the country have grown to be some nineteen (19).

On his authority, some of these Ministries are only duplicating roles and advised their merger.

Speaking in an interview with Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show aired on e.TV Ghana and Happy 98.9 FM, Gideon said;

“Some of the Ministries can be merged and still form part of the 19 core Ministries with a couple of Deputy Ministers. There is the Agriculture Ministry but we can extend its branches into different areas and get the Ministry of Cocoa and others. But do we need to stretch it when it can all be captured under the Agriculture Ministry?” he asked.

He believes that the large number of Ministries have economic implications on the nation and deemed it sound for their reduction.

Reiterating the need to merge some Ministries, he went ahead to list a few of the core ones.

“The Ministry of Agriculture, Finance, Trade and Industry, Foreign Affairs, Local Government and a few other Ministries can’t be done away with. But discussions should be ongoing on merging the essential Ministries with the others.

It has been proposed by some social analysts that Ghana needs only 20 Ministries to function compared to the over 40 Ministries and 123 Ministers appointed by the President Akufo-Addo led administration in 2017.

Here are a list of the proposed ministries:

1. Education

2. Infrastructure Dev’t (roads + work & Housing)

3. Health (include WaSH)

4. Social Protection (gender + children)

5. Environment & Natural Resources (forestry, land, mining, water resources)

6. Agriculture

7. Communication & Information

8. Transport (rail, aviation, maritime, land)

9. Youth & Sports

10. Foreign Affairs & Partnerships

11. Energy

12. Defence & Interior

13. Justice

14. Finance and Econs Planning

15. Trade, Industry & Tourism

16. Local Government (include rural & zongo development)

17. Employment & Labour

18. Innovation & Special Initiative

19. Monitoring & Evaluation

20. Chieftaincy & Religion

It has also been proposed that the constitution be amended to convert the position of Regional Ministers to Regional Chief Executives (RCEs). Reason being that there are MMDCEs who report to them and they report to the Local Government Minister, saving Ghana 32 ministerial/deputy ministerial positions