Political science lecturer at the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo, says President Nana Akufo-Addo favours loyalty over national interest, hence the reluctance to reshuffle ministers in his cabinet.

In an interview on Eyewitness News, Professor Ransford Gyampo said competent persons must run the affairs of the state for effective governance and not people with personal ties to the President.

“Our President favours loyalty and relationships over competence and national interest. For people who may have been loyal to him, he may find it difficult to ask them to leave office. But at the end of the day, it’s not about personal loyalty to the President that matters. It’s about the assemblies of the needed brains, talents and limited human resources we have for the purposes of helping to govern well to help us excuse ourselves from the quagmire of poverty and under-development,” he said.

His comment comes on the back of former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s speech at the International Economic Affairs (IEA) forum on the timing and importance of reshuffling ministers of state.

“I didn’t reshuffle just for the frequency of it; no. The president’s role is like the coach; not just a team leader. You have to know what your ministers are doing, whether they are being positive or whether they’re just being average when you expect more from them. And you should have the courage to say you don’t belong here, go there, or perhaps sit aside, and that thing should not be seasonal; it should be continuous,” the former President said.