Who Is A Minister Of State? Govt Explains

[Know Your Ministers] All Ministers of State who have been appointed to the various ministries are responsible to the substantive ministers of those ministries.
Briefing the Presidential Press Corps at the Castle, Osu, yesterday, Mr. Kwabena Agyepong, Press Secretary to the President explained that, “Ministers of State do not run their own ministries.”

He said that they are appointed to the various ministries to be in-charge of a particular part of the ministry where they take instructions from the minister responsible for the entire ministry.

According to him, “the ministries have departments and agencies which is wholly overseen by the substantive ministers. It is the agencies and departments that the Ministers of State are mostly made to take charge of,” he said.

He disclosed that with the merger of the Ministries of Education and Youth and Sports, and the subsequent nomination of Mr. Rashid Bawa, former Deputy Minister of Education as the Minister of State in charge of Sports, Mr. Joe Aggrey becomes a Deputy Minister in-charge of Sports at the Ministry.

At the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, the nominations of Dr. A Akoto and Dr. Nii Ashong as Ministers of State did not in any way compromise on the positions of Mrs. Grace Coleman and Dr. Adombila Agambila as Deputy Ministers.