Lean staff structure must be adopted across all government sectors – Bokpin

An economist at the University of Ghana, Prof Godfred Alufar Bokpin, has charged the government to reduce the number of staff in its governance structure and across all state-owned institutions. His calls came at the back for calls for the dismissal of the finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta. Speaking to GhanaWeb on the sidelines of the 11th Ghana Economic Forum, he said “We must adopt the lean government across the general government approach, not just the central government, but general government approach to doing business must adopt least cost approach. That is the only way we can come out of with this.” Professor Bokpin indicated his support for the calls to remove the finance minister, whiles adding that “that is not the only change we want. Beyond that, it will not amount to so much just changing the finance minister. We must go a step further and reduce the number of ministers and the government size overall, including the staff at the presidency.” He, therefore, charged the government to cut the size of the staff that are employed in state institutions as some of the portfolios are redundant. “Beyond that, we must replicate that across state-owned enterprises. If you look at their staff strength which has gone up since 2017, we are creating deputy CEOs and all of that. This is the best time for Ghana to look at Ghana and say what is tolerable and what cannot be allowed,” he noted. Watch the latest episode of BizTech below: SSD/FNOQ