The Flagbearer for the National Democratic Government (NDC), John Dramani Mahama has announced his intentions to abolish unnecessary ministerial positions created by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) if his party is voted back into power in the 2020 elections.

He explained that the newly created positions have a huge strain on public funds and therefore must be abolished.

John Mahama made this known at the opening session of a three-day capacity building retreat for Election Directors of the NDC party in Tamale.

The retreat was under the theme “Repositioning the Election Directorate Strategically for 2020 elections.”

Speaking on Accra based Citi FM he said the NDC will abolish many of the positions in order to save the public fund.

“They are said to [have] achieved the world record of 125 Ministers. Definitely some of those Ministers will go under a new NDC government”

“Government expenditure has ballooned and they are not able to collect enough revenue to meet the high expenditure. And part of the high expenditure is because of the huge number of political appointments,” he said.

He noted that under the NDC government, the Procurement Ministry will be abolished because the country has a whole Public Procurement Authority which was supervised by the Ministry of Finance and therefore a Minister for Procurement is not needed.

Background

The Akufo-Addo administration currently has 125 ministers, over 30 more ministers more than its predecessors.

Mahama believes some of the new Ministries created under the current government clearly have no relevance.

In the last ministerial reshuffle, President Akufo Addo added one more ministerial position, increasing the number of ministers to an unprecedented 111.

A total of 15 changes were made with two deputy ministers promoted to substantive positions.

Many including the largest opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC) have criticized the bloated size of ministers, the highest in Ghana’s history, but Deputy Chief of Staff Samuel Abu Jinapor has justified the increase.

He further explained the need for a position of a Minister of State at the Office of the Vice President, a position former Minister of Inner Cities and Zongo Development, Alhaji Boniface Abubakar Saddique has been appointed to.

“The Vice President’s hands are completely full so he’s going to assist the Vice President in executing and achieving all the noble by tasking roles which the Vice President assigned on a day to day basis.”