The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) says the exercise of a lack of due diligence by President John Dramani Mahama in determining whether his appointees were “qualified” or “intelligent” enough to occupy the positions entrusted to them, can be equated to mean the President himself is “incompetent” and “unqualified”.

Expressing its disquiet over the gross incompetence being demonstrated by some of the president's appointees in a statement issued today on behalf of the Youth Wing of the Party, Divine Nkrumah, the National Youth Coordinator of the PPP opined that such conduct by the appointees “only discredits the image of the youth in this country”.

“We find it difficult to understand why the NDC government is unwilling to make competence its hallmark but rather uses other considerations in determining who should be in charge of what,” the PPP Youth Wing said.

It therefore wants the president to conduct a “fresh reshuffle” to “rid his government of all the corrupt, incompetent and selfish ministers”.

“We wish to ask him to look beyond his comfort zone in the NDC and look far in all areas before appointing another set of young unintelligent people who might end up disgracing this country again,” the statement read.

Read the full statement below…

PREZ MAHAMA MUST LOOK ELSEWHERE FOR INTELLIGENT AND COMPETENT YOUTH IF...

The Youth Wing of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) is not surprised a bit by the recent twist of events that has brought shame on the Mahama led government. They have been forced by negative circumstances to relieve Victoria Hammah of her position as Deputy Minister of Communications just to save their face. Everybody in this country is familiar with the issues relating to the appointment of Victoria Hammah and others. A lot of concerns were raised about competence at the time and indeed, time has really exculpated those who did.

Our only disquiet has to do with the fact that the incompetence that has been demonstrated by appointees in Mahama’s government only discredits the image of youth in this country. In a way, this gives credence to support the perception that all young people are not just inexperienced but not ready to handle significant responsibility. This we find rather unfortunate.

The dismissed Deputy Minister of Communications, Victoria Hammah on her leaked tape insistently said that she, Victoria Hammah including other ministers in Mahama’s government are unintelligent. Also, Kwesi Pratt among other social commentators have come out heavily to impugn her competence, saying that Victoria Hammah was not qualified to be minister in the first place. If that is the case, then the question that immediately comes to is, who appoints ministers? What does this scenario connote of the person who does the appointment? It clearly smacks of the point that the President who has the mandate to appoint ministers can equally on this occasion be considered “incompetent or unqualified”. He failed in his duty to exercise due diligence to determine whether the people he was appointing were qualified or intelligent enough to occupy such positions.

We are all aware of the tedious processes and scrutiny that one has to go through before he/she gets to work in a small private company in Ghana here. So how come the same level of scrutiny was not applied in the selection of people to occupy Ministerial positions, considering the magnitude of work of a Minister? What were the criteria? Was it just about ‘foot-soldierism or cadreship’? Our concern is the fact that, the continuous appointment of young incompetent people into government seems to be creating the impression that there are no competent young people in Ghana. We find it difficult to understand why the NDC government is unwilling to make competence its hall mark but rather uses other considerations in determining who should be in charge of what.

We from the PPP, made competent leadership the trump-card of our campaign message in the 2012 elections. We believe that it is only when the president decides to put party, family and personal connections and colours aside and use the best people in Ghana that we shall achieve an optimal condition for growth and development in this country.

We find the misconduct of Miss Hammah as an exposure of the weaknesses in the appointment processes of ministers in this country. We would like to bring to the attention of the good people of Ghana that if the NDC lacks credible and competent youth to help in the governance of this country, then they should look nowhere else than the young astute people in the PPP.

In the interest of mother Ghana, we wish to respectfully ask president Mahama to be AWAKE and conduct a fresh reshuffle that will rid his government of all the corrupt, incompetent and selfish ministers. We wish to ask him to look beyond his comfort zone in the NDC and look far in all areas before appointing another set of young unintelligent people who might end up disgracing this country again.

Signed:

Divine Nkrumah

National Youth Cordinator, PPP