Meetings with Akufo-Addo, ministers and stakeholders sometimes turn into blow-by-blow situations – Oppong-Nkrumah

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has given a glimpse of what it looks like in a typical stakeholders meeting with government officials. While shedding light on some of the steps government has been taking over time to tackle the country’s issues on various grounds, he indicated that there are meetings usually between the president, some government officials, and key stakeholders in respective sectors. According to Oppong-Nkrumah, as part of efforts on the part of the president to understand from the grounds what the issues are, he sits with some of these persons to deliberate over reports, and possible resolutions. During some of these meetings he said, things get heated. “I’ve sat through the meetings, we do an opening and when the press goes out, sometimes it becomes a blow-by-blow situation. “I’ve sat through the meetings, sometimes heated exchanges between the ministers, and the people from the various sectors. Because maybe you are a minister and you send a report about your sector to the president and the people in the sector disagree, they say something different is happening on the ground. "So it is heated and we go through it and then whatever resolutions we are supposed to find and then whatever resolutions the president is supposed to pick from it, he does,” he said, while speaking in Twi on Peace FM. Meanwhile, the minister has said that the president is working to fix major problems particularly economic ones of the country but advocated that Ghanaians join in the efforts to achieve that. Speaking on Peace FM in an interview, the information minister sought to put the speech of the President to the nation on Sunday, October 30 in perspective. Although he assured that pragmatic measures including the 12 major ones outlined by the President in his speech are being taken to ensure a turnaround in the economy, he noted that it’ll take a joint effort on the part of the President, government, stakeholders and the entire Ghanaian populace to achieve this. “The problems we have, not only one person can solve them. If everybody leaves everything to the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to handle, it will not work. "If everybody leaves things to government alone to handle, we all need to come on board. "… Whatever we do, if people sell and add a 100% profit to it, it won’t change much. We can’t use police to chase these traders. So we have to find a way to work together to bring some of these things under control,” he said. You can also watch this episode of People & Places: WA