The Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, who is also the leader of the Majority Group, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has observed that many of the ministers in the government do not add value to governance.
His position, he added swiftly, covers all administrations since 1993. He has thus called for introspection into that.
“Many of our Ministers do not add value to our governance, that is the truth. I am not here talking about the current NPP administration. I refer to all administrations since 1993; the time has come to seriously introspect into this,” he emphasised.
Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu was speaking at a public lecture at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology on the theme, ‘The Constitutional Review: The Perspective of a Legislator’.
The ‘Suame Mugabe’ bemoaned the lack of expertise on the part of some ministers, who, sometimes, beg Parliament’s Appointments Committee to approve of their nomination for them to learn on the job.
According to Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the governance was serious business and required ministers with knowledge to help the President to bring development at their respective sectors.
He thus frowned on the situation of appointing people with the mindset of learning on the job.
REDUCE MINISTERS
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Suame, Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, proposed that ministers who were not part of Cabinet should be cut off to save the public purse.
“And hasn’t the time come for us to place in the Constitution an upper ceiling on the number of ministers of state that we should have. Cabinet Ministers assist the President in the evolution of policies – that is according to Article 76 of the Constitution.
“All bills and agreement that are presented to Parliament are underpinned by governmental policies and principle which the Cabinet Ministers propose to Cabinet, so if you are not a Cabinet Minister, you are not part of the process of evolution of policy,” he explained.
His proposal, if implemented, would leave the country with 19 ministers, instead of the current 30, excluding regional ministers and all deputy ministers.
In concluding his lecture, the Legislator said an introspection into Ghana’s Constitution which had a cumbersome amendment procedure was long overdue.
MONARCHY
Speaking on the powers of the President, the Member of Parliament likened the powers conferred on the President by the Constitution to those of a monarch.
His reason was that one person, the President, makes over five thousand appointments to public offices.
He was of the view that there should be a review of that constitutional provision.
“This certainly is a monarch that the Constitution has created. The rest of us citizens hold him in awe, and if and when he strays, it is difficult to talk straight to him. This arrangement needs to be revisited. It cannot be good for our growth. It cannot be good for the growth of democracy,” he added.
