NPP is non-existent, Akufo-Addo has captured it - Amoako-Baah laments

Dr. Richard Amoako-Baah, a Political Science lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST, has explained why the governing New Patriotic Party is virtually non-existent in its current state.

He holds that the actions and inactions of the president show that he has captured the party and is running it in a way that suggests he does not care about its electoral future.

"The party is nonexistent because the President has captured it. It looks like he doesn't care about the fortunes of the party after he is good," he submitted on PM Express programme on JoyNews, November 16.

"If the party hierarchy is scared, they should stay back and allow the Parliamentarians to do what they are doing and if he doesn't act, they should remove him," he said of the ongoing agitations seeking the removal of Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.

Ofori-Atta is undoubtedly Ghana’s most talked about politician. The demand for his dismissal increases by the day amid an economic crunch he is accused of presiding over.

The one-time investment banker was nominated by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and subsequently passed by Parliament after a vetting process. This was his only legal route to the position of Minister.

The way out of that office rests on himself (via resignation), on the president (dismissal) and on Parliament (via a vote of censure).

The first two processes would seem easier but they don’t seem like the easiest way out. Ofori-Atta has refused to resign and the president insists he has done and continues to do a good job of managing the economy hence repelling calls for his dismissal.

Parliament, however, is officially and unofficially piling on the pressure to have Ofori-Atta removed. Per GhanaWeb’s count, over 230 MPs (the entire Minority bloc and an anti-Ofori-Atta bloc in the Majority Group) are currently asking that the Minister be removed from office.

"This President has started a lot of projects he hasn't completed. Why start Agenda 111 when there are other hospitals yet to be completed? He bites more than he can chew," the lecturer added on how the country is currently being run.

SARA/PEN