General News of Monday, 13 August 2018

Source: 3news.com

Restricting number of ministers will be injustice to Akufo-Addo – Krapa

Energy Minister (r), who was sacked and other ministers under the Akufo-Addo government Energy Minister (r), who was sacked and other ministers under the Akufo-Addo government

Government’s spokesperson on Legal and Governance, Herbert Krapa, has rubbished suggestions that seek to place a cap on the number of ministers a sitting president could appoint.

His comments follow a suggestion by the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, that 65 ministers are enough to run the affairs of the country.

Speaking with 3FM over the weekend, Mr Krapa said denying a sitting president the number of ministers he or she would want to appoint amounts to injustice.

“There is a constitution that allows the government to run an executive government, allows him to come to power based on a manifesto promised on certain programmes he wants to run.

“If we constrain him, we may be doing injustice to him and we do not want to go those lines,” he said.

Mr. Krapa said that in as much the size of a government’s ministers does not drain the public purse, there should be no justification to criticise such.

“Already, the constitution says 50% of [the ministers] must come from Parliament.

“If many of them are coming from Parliament, you are paying just one salary, you have as many people doing the work, you are paying less money, you are getting things done; I think this is how we must look at the argument,” he noted.