General News of Thursday, 12 January 2017

Source: Oman FM

Mahama recruited 11,000 'party boys' into public sector during transition

A former deputy Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Osei Kwame Prempeh A former deputy Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Osei Kwame Prempeh

A former deputy Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Osei Kwame Prempeh has revealed that the immediate past National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration recruited over 11,000 people into the public sector during the transition period.

“Somebody informed me that the immediate past NDC administration recruited over 11,000 people into the public sector including Tema Port during the transition period,” he alleged.

Hon. Osei Kwame Prempeh revealed this on Oman FM on Tuesday during a discussion on reports of some supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) allegedly besieging some public institutions and threatening to eject the workers.

The former Member of Parliament (MP) for Nsuta-Kwaman-Beposo in the Ashanti Region, who expressed disgust at the John Mahama led administration for undertaking what he described as ‘last minute’ recruitment of public sector workers, indicated that the NPP administration would use all legal means to review all the ‘last minute’ recruitment of workers into the public sector.

He emphasized that the new administration would not hesitate to ensure that those who were not qualified, but were recruited based on their party affiliations with NDC are removed from the government's pay roll.

"NPP will not allow the past government to tie its hands at the back,” he said.

Lawyer Osei Prempeh urged supporters of the NPP to exercise restraint as the President was still in the process of putting his team of ministers together for effective and efficient running of the country.

“As we speak, President Nana Akufo-Addo is still appointing his ministers and so we will wait after we are done with the appointments and have taken over fully, then we will look into all these issues.

“So our supporters should be patient. They should worry about getting some job to do,” he assured.

It would be recalled that the immediate past NDC administration put a freeze on public sector employment after signing a three-year programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with the aim of restoring fiscal discipline and stability of the country’s economy.

It was, therefore, shocking how the then government could quickly employ such number of its party faithful into the public sector.