The Member of Parliament for Odododiodoo, Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye, has asserted that President Akufo-Addo’s recent ministerial reshuffle is driven by political considerations rather than the need for effective governance.
Vanderpuye’s comments come in the wake of President Akufo-Addo’s reshuffle on February 14, 2024. According to him, the adjustments were prompted by the President’s awareness of challenges in some constituencies and the perceived incompetence of some Members of Parliament.
He highlighted that the inclusion of new faces in the reshuffle is a strategic move to replace MPs who lost in the Parliamentary Primaries and have subsequently faded from the public eye.
The newly appointed individuals, he contends, will leverage their limited influence to address their public personas and secure their positions in their respective constituencies.
Vanderpuye specifically pointed to the removal of the former Sanitation Minister, Freda Prempeh, who was appointed a few months ago, attributing her removal to her defeat in the Parliamentary Primaries.
During an interview on the Big Issue on Citi TV with Selorm Adonoo on February 17, 2024, Vanderpuye expressed scepticism about the new appointees’ ability to enhance the administration, suggesting that their lack of experience and background in their ministries could potentially worsen the situation.
“Some of us who are political strategists have known that these changes were not made for the functioning of government but for political reasons. Strategic political reasons. Let me be frank with you, the president is privy to National security reports, and he knows that a lot of his constituencies are not doing well, the constituencies of his people and some of these people have lost elections and as such, why should he keep those people there, their influence is gone in the constituency so why doesn’t he bring in new people who may have a little bit of influence that could solve their personalities and positions in their constituencies.
“Let me take for example, the president recently appointed Freda Prempeh to the Ministry, a few months ago, why would he change her? The only reason why he is changing her is because Freda has lost her Parliamentary position.”
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Meanwhile, the former Executive Vice President of Unilever Ghana and Nigeria, Yaw Nsarkoh, has raised concerns about the leadership structure in the country.
According to him, the quality of a country’s leadership structure directly influences its outcomes and results.
Speaking to JoyNews about ‘Leadership in Ghana’ on February 16, he explained that the country is unable to attain the level of development it wants because of weak fundamentals of the leadership hierarchy.
As such, he said, each time the leaders are mentioned, people immediately think of the President and the Vice President. He said this has created a disconnect between the elite and local government.
“It is not only about the leaders. We talk a lot about the leaders and when you are talking about leaders I assume you are talking about the people who are standing for President, or Vice President. So, that is all that our democracy has become about.
“There is, for example, a considerable disengagement between the elite and local government in the country. The final mile, as we like to say, the last mile of delivery, the capillary of governance, is in local government.
“If I come into the studio now and I go round and I ask the people who are there to tell me who your district assembly member is and when was the last time that you spoke to him or you attended a district assembly meeting, I suspect that the room will go quiet. There is a reason why the room will go quiet, the bourgeois, the elite have disengaged from local government,” he said.
He argued that the local government was the first point of development, therefore if the electorates are unable to hold executives at that level accountable for their actions, this phenomenon is replicated at the apex level.
“Now if you do not have a local government like the other that can be held accountable, that is competent, you show me the country that has been able to deliver prosperity and development without functioning local government,” he posited.
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