Akufo-Addo creating monarchical Republic of Ghana—CDG

A former Senior Lecturer of the University of Ghana and the Chief Convener of the Coalition for Democratic Governance (CDG), a pressure group, Dr Ebenezer Kofi Hayford, has described President Akufo-Addo’s government as a “new monarchical republic of Ghana”.

According to him, President Akufo-Addo has created family and friends government to run the affairs of the country.

He explains that more than 70 per cent of government appointees holding key positions are either clan relatives of the president or family friends.

According to him, “this is the first time Ghana is experiencing a government of the sort”, hence describing President Akufo-Addo’s presidency as “new monarchical Republic of Ghana”.

Dr Hayford made the remarks at a press conference organised at the International Press Centre in Accra Wednesday morning.

It was on the theme: “Protecting the public purse indeed”.

Dr Hayford said apart from the Akufo-Addo-led government creating “absurd ministries with over bloated expenditures”, the allocation of huge sums of monies to the presidency for compensations, goods and services and capital expenditure was wasteful.

According to him, the budgetary allocations to the presidency was more than five ministries budgetary allocations put together.

He added that “it does not make sense for the presidency to have more budgetary allocations than key ministries such as the Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Trade and Industries, and Ministry of Works and Housing”.

“It is absurd to have a concentration of expenditure at the presidency while students are suffering in Senior High Schools”, Dr Hayford said.

He said looking at how the Akufo-Addo-led administration “is managing the affairs of the country, clearly shows that the country is being managed without a proper plan”.