Who Reshuffles The President?

Habaa, even ordinary re-shuffle self, President Mahama no dey fit do am mazamaza (fast). This issue of re-shuffle has been thrown into the public domain for so long. In fact, it was initially done in tots; one hears that the Minister for Ebola and Kokoo has been re-shuffled to the Ministry of Pre-mix Problems and Challenges.

Meanwhile, the Minister for Ebola and Kokoo stays in her position aaaaaa. The old Minister for Pre-mix Problems and Challenges is transferred or re-shuffled to the Fanti Region where Ekumfi and Otuam are located. His major responsibility is to ensure that the Ghost of Atta Mills never resurrects to create any problem for the Ekumfimanians and Otuamaniacs.

While the new Fanti Region Minister is eager to move, he cannot hand or foot-over to the incoming Minister from the world of Ebolamiatis for fear of contracting the disease. However, very quick reshuffles from the Ministry of Greedy Youth In Sports took place, one to the office of the President as the Chief Cleaner, while the other was sent to Oseikrom to ensure that Chairman Wontumi and his 'too know' people are cut to size.

Sometimes we talk about Europeans and what they did to us in the days of yore. We hardly talk about the Syrians and the Lebanese and the harm they are doing to our society and culture. I mean, if for example your mother is a pure Asante and your father happens to have run away from Isreali Rockets to Ghana and your name is Joseph Minnya, a combination of Christian and Lebanese names, your behaviour can be the combination of the best in Asante and Lebanon or the worst in Asante and Lebanon. Such a person cannot be different from a Kokuvi Agbotui Rawlings or something – in terms of behaviour and public conduct.

Earlier on, some Ministers had been reshuffled yet they stayed in their Ministries for months without knowing whether they were going or coming, as the Ghanaian would say. Others were reshuffled again when they were on their way to the new positions. They had to ask their drivers to turn and get back to another area without knowing where they would land finally.

Anyway, yes, the re-shuffle has landed this week, we have been told the full faces and names behind the long-drawn changes in government which is intended to change the very dire incompetence this nation has been cursed to live with under John Dramani Mahama's administration.

I am amazed that Ghanaians generally and the followers of the NDC have banked their hopes on the 'Better Ghana Agenda' on the basis of a government reshuffle. Now the reshuffle has come, what hope exists for this country?

Apart from Dr. Ekow Spio-Garbrah, who was even insulted by his own colleagues in the NDC a few years back, what new thing, in terms of personality, ideas, thinking and policy directions, is the nation going to benefit from this reshuffle? These are the same people who have mismanaged this country since 2009 in various positions and roles that have brought this beautiful and resource-rich country virtually on its knees.

There is no single one of the Ministers whose sector Ministry can be identified as having done anything extra ordinary. Every Ministry in this country and the agencies within it is suffering from non-performance and inefficiencies. The only Ministry which is directly under the Presidency which has done extremely well is the Ministry of Corruption and Mismanagement.

It is directly supervised by President John Dramani Mahama. The major agency under this Ministry is Debt Accumulation Department (DAD).

Yes, the President, as the Vice President was to be investigated for inflated cost of procuring an aircraft - the first time in the history of this country. However, because the President was not well, some powerful people in government ensured that the committee never sat to investigate the matter.

Since he assumed office as President, John Mahama has presided over some of the most criminal dissipation of public funds without any actions. It is amazing that a president who has serious financial challenges in the midst of growing social and infrastructural demands will sit down unconcerned as public funds are stolen by cliques in his government.

The Supreme Court of this country whose ruling has kept John Mahama in office has also ruled that payments to Waterville and Isofoton were on the basis of create, loot and share and that government needn't have paid those monies. Government under Mahama has refused to collect those monies back.

An amount of GH ¢ 200,000,000 meant to improve the lives of people in the Savanna regions of this country have been stolen as it were. All the President can do is to dismiss the CEO, the Board and put in place a new Board.

Payments to Subah, GYEEDA, CP and many more other companies established with the intent to rob this country, which have become public knowledge are still holding on to those monies while Capitation Programme is dying, Health Insurance has collapsed, School Feeding is in serious coma and yet the President is not interested in retrieving these monies. The latest of these stealing from the Ministry of Corruption and Mismanagement is the Brazil debacle. The debacle is not the fact that the Black Stars lost but the over US$200,000,000 the then Sports Minister is supposed to have appropriated without the consent of the Chief of Staff. Who born dog under Kwadwo Mpiani?

Now, the Minister is not dismissed but transferred to the Presidency. Is President Mahama a direct beneficiary of the lootings of public funds as a result of which he cannot do anything about them? Who is he protecting in this chain of corruption which has made this country poorer?

In the case of the reshuffle, it is not strange that all the non-performing Ministers were retained because technically it is not their fault. No Minister, no matter how efficient he or she is, can perform when national Budgets approved by Parliament are not released to the Ministries for such long periods.

The truth of the matter is that the Ministries are doing nothing because they do not have the resources to embark upon their programmes. The President knows that and that accounts for his musical-chairs reshuffle and not changes on the basis of incompetence in the management of resources that are available.

Why will the country not be engulfed in filth if the MMDAs are denied their statutory releases for a period of over one financial year? Do you blame the Local Government Minister for it?

How can the Road Minister be blamed for the continuous deterioration of our roads when the Feeder Roads Department, Urban Roads and the Ghana Highways Authority are all starved of funds for maintenance and reconstruction for about two years running?

The Mahama administration is more comfortable paying nonexistent debts than investing in social projects. Is he a beneficiary of the dubious judgement debts? If there is anybody who deserves to be reshuffled and never to come back to public service, that person is John Dramani Mahama the most incompetent President of our times. Time will surely tell.

NPP'S ELECTORAL COLLEGE ELECTIONS
As I write, a date is about to be fixed for the Electoral College to prune down the seven prominent members of this great party to five who will then be allowed to contest the main primaries later this year, all things being equal.

Yes it is a provision in our Constitution, but I think there is something wrong in that provision. Is the party under any obligation to present a maximum of five aspirants to the primaries? It is my considered opinion that a certain minimum percentage must be obtained by an aspirant during the special delegates' conference.

If in the upcoming special delegates' conference two of the aspirants obtain zero votes, they are automatically out. If out of the remaining five aspirants, two of them garner a total of 90% of the votes and the other three share the remaining 10% of the votes, why do we waste our time on them? The party should set a minimum percentage of votes below which no aspirant will qualify to take part in the national conference to elect a flagbearer. This will mean that this exercise of electing a flagbearer will not be reduced to a concert party activity.

 By Kwesi Biney