Leave The Honourable Minister Of Education Alone – To His Haters And Enemies Of Progress

There is no any Minister of a Ministry or so called CEO of Public Agencies who has conclusive negotiation capacity without the consensus of the Finance Minister and the President. Fair Wages and Salaries Commission is just acting as intermediary within the public sector without also having a conclusive negotiation capacity on salaries and wages of public workers. Labour Commission on the other hand is serving as the government agent when it comes to applying force terms on the labour unions to accept agreements.

First of all, I take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude and plea to the striking unions to temper mercy with justice and compassion. Who is to be blamed in these terrible circumstances that the children and their parents are going through causes serious frustrations about education at this moment in time. Let’s face the facts, it is the President of the Republic and the Finance Minister who should be speaking for the Minister of Education and not the other way round. That is where we find ourselves because of the poorly established educational constitution and its policies which puts power of operations into the hands of the Finance Minister and the President. You all know that the kind of Public Administration and Governance system that we have created is the worst system one can think of when it comes to Public financing. The structure of Public financing is in the hands of the Minister of Finance and the President. All the public servants including Ministers and so called CEOs who cannot make financial decisions on their own without the Finance Minister and the President wish or approval.

So, the kind of public administration that we have are like figure heads, they do not make decisions on their own just like a boss but rather will have to also go begging and lobbying the Finance Minister to release of funds for payment of projects and also fulfilling the payment of salary and promotion arrears and other allowances and benefits. For God’s sake, Minister of Education does not determine the salaries and payment of public staff but rather the Fair Wages and Salary Commission does. Sometimes, you ask yourself what is the use and efficiency of Salary and Wages Commission when they do not even manage the whole Ghana Public budgets but the Finance Minister does it through the wish of the President. So, if any educated person in Ghana is pouring their insults and name calling against the Minister of Education must shut up and apologize. The issue at hand should not be used as political witch hunting and show of hatred and dislike of the Minister of Education. This is the time that all well-meaning Ghanaians must sympathize with the Minister of Education and pray for him to succeed by gaining the Power house Leaders of this country, which is the Finance Minister and the President to come out and speak to the striking unions.

The Minister of Education must not be used as a scapegoat and political witch hunting by those who already disliked him either because of his tribe, religion or internal politicking against him wrongly. There is a saying that if Allah says yes or be, no one can undo it. So, people must watch their utterances and not use cheap politics. Is only in Ghana you can just get up and started insulting and vilifying a hardworking public servant who are just politicians through democracy to help the country by contributing their quota. During Nana Addo government Administration, the former Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection ones disciplined a government appointee under the Ministers Ministry without the knowledge of the President or Presidency allegedly, then soon after the sacking of the government appointee and the information got to the President, the Minister of Gender, Children, and Social Protection had to write another letter to withdraw the initial sacking that was in the public domain just because power pass power.

In view of the above, Ghanaians must understand that the Ministers appointed by the President actually don’t manage or control anything except the Finance Minister and the President especially, when it comes to the condition of service and other reward systems. The appointees only are there to wrongly face public hits and pressures from the government that appoints them. In fact, what the current Minister of Education is going through is about hate and scapegoating because education is about the entire nation and not about the Minister of Education alone, therefore, Ghanaians must rather send their anger and frustration to the Finance Minister and the President of Ghana for redress. This is so, because if the Minister of Education has tried all his best by contacting the Minister of Finance and the presidency and nothing is happening then the striking unions has every right to go directly on the President and the Minister of Finance. The Ministers and their Ministries do not manage any real funds like cash within their Ministries accounts to make their own judgements to the Controller and Accountant General Department. Just like the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission who champion Single Span Salary Pay Policy (SSSPP) has no real funds that they can speak to unless the Finance Minister speaks with decision on real funds that can be paid. In this regard, it means that Ministers and so called CEOs are appointed just to hold that position in pretends as if they are in-charge of anything but they are not without the Power of Finance Minister and the President.

Just recently, one political hypocrite went on rampage and poured his hate on the Hon. Minister of Education because of hate and cheap politicking and caused a lot slander. He makes reference to the removal of the Minister of Education as NDC majority leader from parliament and attributed the purported removal as initiated by the Chairman of NDC and the General Secretary. This was totally unnecessary, provoking, hate and politicking of the Minister of Education because the big question is which politician in Ghana is clean without corruption? Which politician in Ghana can come out and say they are not corrupt and that they never do anything behind the doors or in darkness? Let’s say the facts, NDC was already going to win the 2024 elections, it wasn’t about the hatred removal of the majority leader that pave way for NDC to win. No. Every circumstance and situation was pointing to the fact that the opposition party had upper hand to win that election. Let me also correct this from NDC, many of the youth must desist from maligning and tagging their hardworking leaders just like that because tribal politics is dangerous in our part of the world especially in NDC as socialist party. Everybody is important and matters.

Another, major issue that needs to be stopped is most northerners who are wrongly fighting or taking opposition to the Minister of Education because of their political ambitions or fallen into a wrong trap of divide, conquer and rule tactics. Let’s support our hard working political leaders in the party and stand with them to succeed in this crisis that we find ourselves in. Let me take this opportunity again to beg and plead with the striking union to please consider our children and parents and understand to the plea and assurance that the Minister of Education has expressed to the unions and let the children go back to school with you at post to deliver your good works. We all believe that the Finance Minister and the President are both aware of the striking force, no pretense, we are all in Ghana. The Finance Minister and President must add their voice now in support of the Minister of Education for the striking unions to gain some trust and assurance before they can go back to teach our children. This strike is not only against the Minister of Education but it’s against the entire government of the day.

To conclude, my suggestion to the country is that we must either change some of the public administration structures that we crafted in our constitution and make it more responsible and flexible to operate by appointees. That is, instead of all funds to Ghana going to only the Minister of Finance confers or accounts to preside over and make budget allocations to Ministries and other government agencies, a fixed percentages must rather be allocated to Ministries and other agencies to automatically be receiving what is due them so that they can always know what they have before they go into any negation with the unions or their workers instead of them making negotiations with empty talks because they don’t manage any real funds entirely without Ministry of Finance allocation and approval together with the President consent. It is clear, that having seen the challenges of strikes in this country has to do with the application of wrong models of employment in the public sector and until a more professional and robust model and systems are created and implemented, the country will aways have these striking challenges cropping up in no time. Moreover, it is free market policy that is also killing this country and makes life unbearable for workers. Prices of goods and services are too high because we are operating a treadmill economy. We go nowhere with the same way of doing things all the time. I believe this country need employment change and reorganization to suit the economic situations in this turbulent world.

Thank you for your understanding.
A-K Adam
(A Ghanaian Citizen)

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