26 November 2009

THE DIRECTIVE issued by the President, His Excellency Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, to all Ministers of State to grant unrestricted access to sympathisers of the ruling party anytime they come to them, appears not to have gone down well with the Majority Leader and Member of Parliament (MP) for Nadowli West, Mr. Alban Sumani Bagbin.

Perhaps feeling the heat from a recent series of attacks launched on his government by the Founder of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), ex-President Jerry John Rawlings, and other functionaries of the party, including party chairmen and cadres across the country, President Mills is reported to have instructed all ministers, through his Spokesperson, Mahama Ayariga, to grant unlimited entrée to supporters of the ruling party, anytime they visit their offices.

But the Majority Leader seems not amused with the President's decision, saying the decree was far from being feasible, given the circumstances under which ministers operate in this country.

"I do not think this order of the President will work, in fact, it is not practicable in the sense you cannot tell the Minister to leave his busy schedules to attend to everybody who comes to his or her office," he stated.

The leader of the august house was reacting to the President's directives in an interview with Angel 96.1FM, a Kumasi-based radio station yesterday.

According to Mr. Bagbin, most of the current crop of Ministers are first-timers, who need a little more time to adapt to public administration, and as such, telling them to entertain party sympathisers would pose a lot of inconveniences.

He noted, "as a Minister of State, you are under constant pressure everyday to attend to government duties, it is even more difficult for those who experience public service for the first time, and I do not think they will have the leisure to entertain party sympathisers."

Alban Bagbin, who has also waded into the recent controversy stirred by former President Rawlings following his comments that the Presidency had been hijacked by opportunists and sycophants, by supporting the ex-Presidents' assertion, stated that the President ought to take a second look at his much-trumpeted lean government policy.

According to him, even though he does not find anything wrong with the President wanting to cut down government expenditure and raise revenue for the country, he believes the President can make few adjustments without necessarily jeopardising the agenda.

"To me, the lean government policy must be done with some human face. I believe there are few appointments the President can make, particularly to the Ministries, to complement the efforts of the Ministers."

The Nadowli MP mentioned for instance, that the President can appoint a few technocrats to the Ministries to offer technical assistance and expertise to the new Ministers, for them to be able to perform creditably.

"I do not think the current situation is the best. The President wants to cut down cost, that is fine, but there are also few party sympathisers out there who toiled day and night for the party to get to where we are right now, and I am sure it would not be out of place to reward them," he noted.

In a related development, Charles Takyi Boadu also reports that President Mills may have to revise his directive to political appointees to either give or create 'space' at their various places of work for supposed footsoldiers and members of his party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), considering the heat the issue has generated across the length and breadth of the country, since the announcement was made.

Several callers to various radio stations criticised the President's decision, which they perceived as an attempt to give preference to members of his political party.

Latest among those who have openly spoken against the 'President's initiative' is a Senior Political Science Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kwasi Amakye Boateng.

In an exclusive telephone interview with The Chronicle yesterday, he noted that the President's decision could further divide the country on political lines, and that he made a grave mistake by coming out with a directive, he described as unfortunate, since according to him, "it seeks to deepen political patronage in our body politics."

He noted that no political party would want to go that way, since the the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies he directed the supporters to, are not employment creation centres, asking, "are they offices for employment, why are they going there?"

That notwithstanding, he noted that the resources available at these institutions are national ones, "so if we say that a section of society, members of a political party, should go in with legitimate concerns, we find out that the term legitimate concern seeks to legitimise an action/behaviour that in a democracy is illegitimate."

This, in his opinion, could be a way of splitting society, considering the fact that the country was gradually being divided along political lines.

He also believes that the President's directive is discriminatory, "simply because the impression is that if you are not a member of the NDC, then there is no way you are going to benefit from the largesse.

"You can't wake up one day and go to the DCE that I've come, DCE, I need ABCD. So the place where they were directed to, itself, is problematic," he stated.

Furthermore, he said the initiative sought to isolate only a section of society for special reward.

To him the directive seems to suggest that the President was trying to use national resources to build the NDC as a political party. This, he continued, "is also not desirable in a democracy."

Mr. Boateng believes that this directive goes to buttress the fact that President Mills is giving in to pressures from his NDC party, and specifically from its Founder and former President Rawlings, who has accused the current administration of neglecting footsoldiers, whose toil and sweat brought the party to government.

The University Don argued that the footsoldiers and Mr. Rawlings have forgotten that a government is brought into office to help develop the nation, generate employment, not only for a section of society, but for a whole nation.

He advised the government to use the much-publicised Savannah Project to create employment, since rice was gradually becoming an important commodity on the market.

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