Governance expert Prof. Baffuor Agyemang-Duah doubts the decision by president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to reshuffle his appointees will have any positive impact in the governance of the country.
President Akufo-Addo, today, announced a major shakeup in his government since he took over power 7 years ago.
This follows years of public pressure on the president to reshuffle his appointees as many believe most of them have underperformed.
The demand for a reshuffle reached a crescendo during the peak of the economic crisis when Members of Parliament from the governing New Patriotic Party publicly called on the president to relieve the Finance Minister of his duties.
Although there were reports that he had agreed to let Ken Ofori-Atta go after when the country finally struck a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he failed to do so.
But just months to the end of his tenure, he has announced a major reshuffle of the government.
As many as 9 ministers including Ken Ofori-Atta and 10 deputies have been relieved of their duties and new faces have been nominated to replace them.
But speaking in an interview on Accra-based Joy FM, Prof. Agyemang-Duah said the changes have come a little too late.
He argued that the president should made such changes when the public mounted pressure on him to do so.
“Not at all exciting. This is too little coming too late. I’m sure most people will say the same. The time that the public was very anxious for such a policy change, the president for some reasons was very unresponsive and I think so far what he has done is not going to make much different”.
With just few months to the end of his tenure, the governance expert believes the new appointees will make no significant impact in the portfolios they have been assigned.
“We are left about 10 months and with the 10 months, I don’t know for sure of what these appointees are going to do to make a difference in governance. So for me, whiles it’s important only in the sense that the president will go on record to have reshuffled his government, beyond that there is nothing significant about this announcement,” he stated.
