Former Attorney – General and Minister of Justice and NPP Presidential candidate aspirant, Hon. Joe Ghartey, has stated that he will appoint 60 Ministers when elected as President of Ghana.
He made this known in an interview with Umaru Sanda on Citi FM’s Eyewitness News.
According to him, his government will have a maximum of sixty Ministers.
This was in response to a question which described President Akufo-Addo’s first term Government of 111 Ministers as bloated.
Hon. Ghartey disagreeing with the suggestion that the Akufo-Addo government was bloated, said that in the first term, President Akufo-Addo’s philosophy of the size of government led to 9% growth by the end of his first term.
He explained further that when he was Attorney-General in President Kufuor’s era, he asked President Kufuor why he was creating a Ministry of Aviation, when he was asked to draft the legal document that would create the new Ministry.
He said that President Kufuor answered that one of the ways a government focused on a particular sector was to isolate the sector, create a Ministry with a Minister in charge.
Hon. Ghartey stated that clearly this was what President Akufo-Addo had in mind when for example he created the Ministry of Railways Development and had it remained as part of the Ministry of Transport it may not have received the attention it is receiving under President Akufo-Addo.
The former 2nd Deputy Speaker of Parliament said that since independence no era had seen so much construction in the railways sector with over 200kms currently under construction.
However, the Presidential Aspirant said he had a different philosophy and would have a much smaller government because of current circumstances.
He said emphatically that the total number of Ministers in his government would not exceed 60, which would include 19 Cabinet Ministers and 16 Regional Ministers.
