Ace Ankomah
PRESSURE GROUP OccupyGhana has called on President Akufo-Addo to reduce the size of government considering the current economic hardship facing Ghanaians.
In a statement issued Tuesday, the group said that there was no better time to run a ‘mean and lean’ government than now.
“Times are hard… Every Ghanaian is feeling the pinch and pain. To survive, citizens are forced to cut back on some essential things in life. The government, which is largely to blame for the economic mess, must also cut back and more,” it mentioned.
According to the group, the reduction in the size of government should go beyond ministers to all ministerial appointees too.
“This is, therefore, a demand for an immediate and drastic reduction in size, not limited to ministers alone, but the entire President’s non-ministerial appointees. If for nothing at all, the symbolism in the government also taking a hit, just like the rest of us, is very strong. These are not normal times and ‘business as usual’ won’t cut it. The excuses for having and paying a large batch of ministers and other appointees to produce the results we see now, to the extent that they have ever been justified (which we deny), wear perilously thin in these times,” the statement read.
The group stated that it had always been an advocate for a lean government as mentioned in its statement on March 17, 2022.
It noted, “We also pointed out that the ‘considerable amount of money in salaries, allowances and benefits… (in addition to enjoying a range of ex-gratia benefits when they leave office) does not sound to us like a diligent attempt to protect the public purse.”
The group, however, said that the President had failed to prove why the country needed a large size of government having described the large size of government as a necessary investment to give results.
“Time has tested both ‘the investment’ and ‘the pudding,’ and they have not aged well and have been found wanting. The combined return, two years to the end of the President’s second term, is this debilitating economic crisis. Unless the President’s new and unacceptable argument would be that we would be in a much worse situation, but for his still large coterie of ministers, it is time to get ‘lean and mean’. If as citizens, we are compelled to cut down on our private expenses, then it is time for the government to do the same to protect the public purse,” OccupyGhana said.
BY Ebenezer K. Amponsah