There are 27 Special Assistants currently working with the government.

Their appointment followed the lack of Chief Directors to man the various ministries and to implement policies. The Civil Service requires 37 Chief Directors but currently it has only eight, half of whom are on contract.

Information and Presidential Affairs Minister, Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, announced these in Parliament on Tuesday.

He noted that, the lack of Chief Directors had put strong pressures on the Ministers as they wrestled with their mandate to implement decisions with dispatch.

That situation, he explained, had led the government to accept the need for Ministers to have Special Assistants in their offices to assist them in the speedy implementation of policies and in the discharge of other ministerial duties and commitments.

According to him, their appointments are contractual and are subject to renewal by the Ministers under whom they serve. He denied that they earned 5,000 dollars a month saying that their salaries and other entitlements were determined by the President in accordance with the Civil Service Law 1993.