Member of Parliament North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has taken a swipe at President Akufo-Addo following the Annual Report on Staffing at the Office of the President submitted to the August house on Thursday, March 30, 2023.
The lawmaker says despite calls by Ghanaians on the President to cut down his appointees he has rather increased the number of workers at the presidency.
In a statement, the MP said the president has increased political appointees from 337 in 2021 to 361 in 2022.
He said, “the President has therefore obstinately added 24 more political appointees to his staff at the Presidency”.
He added “The category of public and civil servants at the Presidency has also gone up from 658 in 2021 to 687 in 2022.
Despite Ghana’s current economic crisis which has seen us defaulting on loans for the first time in over 50 years, undergoing a historic debt restructuring, seeking an IMF bailout and triggering the most abysmal performance in international credit ratings, the total staff strength under the Akufo-Addo presidency for 2022 now stands at an abominable 1,048. This has gone north from 995 in 2021 — an overall increase of 53.”
Read the full statement below
Parliament has today received the Annual Report on Staffing at the Office of the President for the year 2022 in compliance with the Presidential Office Act, 1993 (Act 463).
Consistent with President Akufo-Addo’s regrettably intransigent, insensitive and stony-hearted character; he has contemptuously ignored the avalanche of demands on him to reduce the size of his government and has by this latest Annual Report unconscionably increased his already obscenely bloated government.
Preliminary analysis of his 2021 and 2022 reports to Parliament reveal that President Akufo-Addo has increased the number of political appointees from 337 in 2021 to 361 in 2022. The President has therefore obstinately added 24 more political appointees to his staff at the Presidency.
The category of public and civil servants at the Presidency has also gone up from 658 in 2021 to 687 in 2022.
Despite Ghana’s current economic crisis which has seen us defaulting on loans for the first time in over 50 years, undergoing a historic debt restructuring, seeking an IMF bailout and triggering the most abysmal performance in international credit ratings, the total staff strength under the Akufo-Addo presidency for 2022 now stands at an abominable 1,048. This has gone north from 995 in 2021 — an overall increase by 53.
It must be emphasized that Ghana has never experienced this level of presidential recklessness in our entire history. It is unprecedented for the list of staffers at the presidency to hit and exceed a thousand.
From available records in Parliament, the highest number of comparative political appointees ever reported in the entire Fourth Republic was 70 in 2012 which declined remarkably to 31 by 2015. In reality, President Akufo-Addo has added an incredible 291 political appointees to the NDC’s highest number. That is a spike of some 415.7%
I will have to point out that from parliamentary records, the highest number of combined staffers (political and non-political) before the Akufo-Addo post 2017 era was 758 recorded in 2002 under President Kufuor. President Akufo-Addo breaks this record by some 38.2%.
I am terribly pained to acknowledge that the treacherous conduct by some of our parliamentary colleagues in last Friday’s secret vote on the president’s ministerial and judicial nominees has obviously emboldened this unhinged president to continue on his path of perdition.
Sadly, thanks to a few traitors, the majority of NDC MPs appear to be losing credibility on this all important matter.
I can only hope that at this reckless rate, an emboldened President Akufo-Addo does not record over 1,500 staffers by the time he leaves office in 2025.
May God save our Republic.
Ghana First ??
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
