... Ministries of National Security, Presidential Affairs, Parliamentary Affairs, Fisheries and Public Sector Reform Scrapped
President John Evans Atta Mills, through an Executive Instrument has realigned some Ministries and cut down the present number of Ministries from 27 to 23.

The 23 Ministries which now constitute the Civil Service are: Ministries of Finance; Foreign Affairs; Defence; Interior; Trade and Industry; Justice and Attorney General's Department; Roads and Highways; Food and Agriculture; Lands and Natural Resources; Local Government and Rural Development; Energy; Health; and Education.

The rest are the Ministries of Employment and Social Welfare; Communications; Information; Tourism; Transport; Water Resources, Works and Housing; Youth and Sports; Environment, Science and Technology, Women and Children's Affair's and Chieftaincy and Culture. Presidential Spokesperson Mr Mahama Ayariga told a press briefing at the Castle, Osu, in Accra that the Ministries of National Security, Presidential Affairs, Parliamentary Affairs, Fisheries and Public Sector Reform have been dropped.

Under the new arrangement the Railways, Ports and Harbours and Aviation now come under one Ministry, the Ministry of Transport. Mr Ayariga explained that the move was to save cost and make effective use of the human resources available.

On the dropping of the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, the Presidential Spokesperson said Parliament was an autonomous arm of Government which would consider its own staffing needs.

He said the Civil Service would find ways to realign and Chief Directors, Directors, Staff of other workers into other Ministries. On the separation of the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General's Department into two different bodies, Mr Ayariga said the two bodies, presently joined into one, have been entrenched in the Constitution, and the issue would have to be put to Ghanaians under a constitutional review.

The Presidential Special Initiative under the previous regime, he said, were in a sense projects, and would also be reviewed for the Government to know which ones needed to be projected.

Meanwhile, the President has nominated Mr Kofi Opoku-Manu, a former Chief Director at the Ministry of Finance for the position of Ashanti Regional Minister.