Minister of State-designate for Local Government and Rural Development, Osei Bonsu Amoah, has called on the Ghanaian public to distinguish between public servants and government appointees.
According to him, bunching these two groups as a single unit will always create an erroneous impression about the size of government when that is not the reality.
Government, he said, is the biggest employer anyway and therefore when employing there should not be any lamentation because it provides jobs for people to do.
Mr. O.B. Amoah made the call during his public vetting by the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Tuesday, February 21.
Responding to a question on the size of the government and the call to downsize, the Minister of State-designate argued such an exercise has been ongoing since the government began its second term.
According to him, a number of ministries have been collapsed already by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akfo-Addo including Monitoring and Evaluation, Zongo, Procurement, Regional Reorganization and several others.
He argued skeleton staff have, however, been maintained to manage these places and therefore when someone at the presidency is put in charge of Special Development Initiative, for instance, it is because the programme is still running and cannot be washed away just because the ministry does exist any longer.
He pointed out that these persons would have to monitor and take possession of projects after completion and stressed their services are therefore really needed.
O.B Amoah called for non-partisan discourse to pick out the issues and stressed it is not always too good to compare because others will also have issues with the appointments of the former government.
“What is the point of saying you have employed 800 and therefore if I have employed 600 don’t complain?”
“Let’s interrogate it in an academic and proper way and though some may still insist the number is still too large, all these people have a role to play,” he said.
Speaking about his role at the Ministry, he indicated that as a Minister of State at the Ministry, he will support the substantive minister for the efficient operation of the Minister.
He argued he is one step below the Local Government Minister and stressed he had a very good relationship with the Hon. Dan Botwe, having worked with him as a Deputy Minister and therefore does not see the possibility of a clash.