Save government this embarrassment
In June 2013, the President announced that Ministers of State, government appointees as well as public office holders were going to sign a performance contract as a way of getting them to work by tapping into his vision.
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According to the guiding principle governing the contract, it is aimed at maximising the performance of ministers and other public office holders, as well as ensuring that the President’s vision for the country was actualised.
The initiative would also enable citizens of this country including non-Ghanaians, to appreciate the performance of the government.
This revelation was received with mixed feelings, with some of the critics saying it was a political gimmick. However, the government insisted that it was the best option to spur the ministers on to work harder.
Since that exercise, there has only been one review of the performance of the appointees, which was carried out during a seminar held at GIMPA.
Not quite long after this exercise, the President did some ministerial reshuffle and certain ministers of state as well as their deputies lost their positions and new ones were appointed.
The same fate befell some Chief Executive Officers of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), some of who lost their jobs.
This exercise is an indication that the President is really monitoring his appointees and he is ever ready to let go those who are not helping the team to achieve the targets the government has set for itself to ensure a Better Ghana.
We don’t know the variables that the President used to assess his team members, but a cursory look at events that unfold in all spheres of society – health, education, industry, housing, the economy as well as the political terrain – will attest to the fact that some of the appointees are not doing well at all.
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Recent events show that the President needs to embark on a massive shake-up, because some of his ministers are just in office for the sake of it. They have reneged on their duties and are causing some major embarrassment to the President and the government.
The sad aspect of the whole saga is that Ministers of State and some other political appointees have the best conditions of service in this country.
Apart from the fat salaries and allowances, they are provided with first-class accommodation in prime areas of the city. Even in the regional capitals, the regional ministers live in very huge mansions with everything at their disposal.
Additionally, our Ministers of State are given free fuel and they have special perks intended to make them comfortable while they perform their duties in the interest of the people.
It is therefore expected that with this juicy package they will work satisfactorily and help to improve the living standards of the people.
I was flabbergasted when recently, the Minister of Health and his counterpart at the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations looked on while junior doctors carried through their threats to ‘invade’ the offices of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD), to demand the payment of 11 months’ salary arrears owed them.
One would have expected that since the signals from the junior doctors were glaring, the ministers with oversight responsibilities over them would have taken the cue and stepped in to calm the waters before the unthinkable happened.
Sadly, they were not fast enough until the doctors trooped to the CAGD before stepping in to calm them down with a promise to settle the arrears within three days.
The million-dollar question is, why didn’t the ministry do this very simple thing earlier when the threats were rife? This is not the first time public and civil servants have complained about poor service conditions and government has remained unperturbed.
There have been numerous protests over salaries and conditions of service, but it appears that the various institutions that have to deal with such issues look on unconcerned until the President himself stepped in to calm the waters.
At the moment, the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) is on strike over its conditions of service for its members. I still don’t see what the Health and Employment and Labour Relations ministers are doing to deal with this issue.
As ministers of state, they must be aware that labour-related conflicts have to be handled with tact so that while dealing with the issues, passions are not inflamed, in order to promote industrial harmony.
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It’s time our leaders, and for that matter ministers of state, as well as government appointees, took further lessons in conflict resolution so that issues that breed conflict, especially when they are about labour issues, are nipped in the bud before they become real. The embarrassment must be curtailed.