Dan Botwe, Osafo Maafo Out?

After months of nail biting anticipation and heart burns on the part of some ministers, the much touted cabinet reshuffle is here at last. Probably by the end of the day, it would be made official and it is expected to send shockwaves down the body politic of Ghana.
The Defender can reliably claim that when the new ministerial posts are announced two of the most popular ministers would be out. And they are the Minister of Education and Sports, Mr. Yaw Osafo Maafo and the Minister for Information, Mr. Dan Botwe.
Top Castle sources revealed to the Defender these two ministers had been dropped but assigned no reasons for their exit.
The source further confirmed that Cabinet would be downsized and a number of ministries would be merged, whilst several deputy ministers would also be shown the exit to bring the total number of ministers down to below 60.Mr. Yaw Osafo Maafo served with distinction at the Finance Minister during the first Kufuor administration and he is credited with taking Ghana from the HIPC period and coming out with flying colours.
However, attempts during his reign at Finance Ministry to secure private loans from both the CCNTCI and the IFC proved fiasco as loan agreement were never reached. During the second term of the Kufuor administration, he was appointed to the Education and Sports ministry and here again, he achieved history by being the first sports minister to take the country to the World Cup. Mr. Dan Botwe, affectionately called General by the rank and file of the NPP is also credited with engineering the NPPs election victories in 2000 and 2004 when he was the General Secretary of the party.
He was responsible for building the party?s structures at the constituency level and as a reward, was given a cabinet appointment in the second term of the Kufuor administration.
However, less than 17 months later he is on his way out. Dan Botwe is widely believed to be the kingmaker when it comes to choosing the NPP presidential candidate for the 2008 elections and whoever he throws his support behind is tipped to carry the day.
Castle sources however contended that the dropping of the two was done without malice and that the interest of the nation and the party was taken into consideration.