General News of Wednesday, 12 April 2017

Source: starrfmonline.com

Akufo-Addo’s ‘obolo’ gov’t job for NPP stalwarts – NDC

Kofi Portuphy, National Chairman of the NDC Kofi Portuphy, National Chairman of the NDC

The Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Kofi Portuphy has strongly criticized the size of president Akufo-Addo’s government.

According to him, the size of the president’s government is ridiculously perplexing and that it is an implicit strategy to provide jobs for stalwarts of the NPP who are unemployed.

Addressing a press conference Wednesday, Mr Portuphy said “One pledge that stood out in the heavily plagiarized inaugural speech of president Akufo-Addo was the protection of the public purse. Protecting the public purse implies among others avoiding a large and unwieldy government that becomes a drain on the state resources.”

“It means installing a lean government that uses minimal resources to obtain an optimal output. That is what every competent chief executive does. Since taking office however, everything the NPP government has done points to the exact opposite. Ghana is now burdened with unprecedented 110 ministers and deputy ministers.

“This ‘obolo’ government has now been turned into a job creation venture for prominent but unemployed members of the NPP. President Akufo-Addo says he needs a 110 ministers for the efficient performance of his government…so he has appointed minister for national security, minister for defense, minister for interior, national security advisor, deputy minister for defense, deputy minister for interior in addition to the IGP, National security coordinator, yet with so many appointees in the security apparatus they could not contain a small force like Delta Force,” he added.

The president, however, argued otherwise stating that his “elephant size” government might not matter after the economy begins to flourish in the coming days.