General News of Wednesday, 25 September 2013

Source: Daily Guide

NDC boys chase ministers

Disappointed members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) are up in arms against some of President Mahama’s Ministers of State.

A splinter group in the ruling party, that identifies themselves as Young Democrats, are particularly not happy with the output of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Marietta Brew Appiah-Opong, and her colleague Minister of Tourism, Elizabeth Ofosu-Agyare, for which reason they are at their throats.

At a press conference in Accra yesterday, spokesman for the Young Democrats, Tafhim Gbonta, complained bitterly about the continuous delay in the prosecution of those cited for wrongdoing in the infamous GYEEDA report as ordered by the President and had since given the Attorney General a two-week ultimatum to start the process.

“We are giving the Justice Minister and for that matter the Attorney General an ultimatum of two weeks to ensure that prosecution is started,” spokesman for the group stated.

He, however, did not say what they would do, if the Minister was unable to meet their demands on schedule except to say they would advise themselves since according to him, “justice delayed is justice denied.”

In the case of the Minister of Tourism, they noted “we are particularly not happy with the ministry of tourism’s performance and urge the Minister to up her performance.”

The group claims to have done extensive analysis about the sector minister and realised her performance is far below expectation.

They believe this is affecting the delivery of the much promised ‘Better Ghana Agenda’ promised by the NDC as a party by the Mahama administration, urging all government appointees to sit up.

“We also want to use this opportunity to inform the ministers and government appointees that the holidays are over and the game is on”, was how Tafhim Gbonta put it.

They have since urged President Mahama to strengthen the monitoring and evaluation mechanism of his Ministers to make government more transparent. This, in their opinion, will enable Ghanaians to identify performing and non-performing appointees.

“It is therefore about time the performance appraisal of government officials are made public. This will put ministers on their toes”, spokesman of the group noted.

Leadership of the Young Democrats has since served notice of their intention to expose non performing government officials since according to Tafhim Gbonta “we will not relent in our effort to expose any non performing and corrupt minister because that will be the way to ensure that the better Ghana Agenda is fulfilled however.