Prez Mahama must reshuffle top ministers, communications team now!

President John Mahama must reshuffle his ministers, assert his authority and in a calm but firm manner, make it clear to Ghanaians that he is in charge, Vice President of policy think tank, IMANI, has said.

Mr Kofi Bentil said the president must drop some of the senior ministers appointed by the late president John Atta Mills without bothering about whose ox is gored.

Apparently concerned with the incoherence and discordance that has characterized government communication, the lecturer prayed the new president would put his foot down and ensure that “at least the people who surround him, the communication team,... see new faces and we should see a sense of a change in direction and tenor and the way they speak and the substance which they put out in the public.”

Without appearing disruptive, the president, he insisted, must "stamp his authority, he needs to make fundamental changes just to send a message down to everybody; it is not a negative thing, it is required, it is proper, otherwise he will not be able to run well.”

Mr Bentil, who was speaking on Joy FM's Super Morning Show Tuesday – exactly one week after the death of President John Evans Atta Mills – said the president's calm nature should not translate into weakness and indecisiveness.

He hopes the president “will clearly define a path and insist that people tow that path.”

The IMANI Vice President said the president's preoccupation should be giving Ghanaians hope and showing clear, purposeful leadership and not winning the December elections.

According to him, if the president prioritises the elections, he may lose sight of critical things that will eventually lose for him and his party the polls.

"I expect to see a certain aspect of president Mahama which is different and gives me assurance that here is a person who has his own mind and has some idea of the strategy to take us to the point which is get through this election peacefully," he stated.