Opinions of Thursday, 16 October 2014
Columnist: Camynta Baezie, PhD
Scrap the "Ministry of Football"
His Excellency John Dramani Mahama once again showed his commitment to reducing waste by scrapping the Ministry of Information and Media Relations. This has led to the reduction of the Sector Ministries from 24 to 23 with the subsequent reduction in running costs.
Taking a cue from the President’s thinking, I suggest a further look at the functions and performances of the current Ministries for further merges and/or realignments. This is because the Ministries are still too many and the effectiveness and performance for which some were separated have not been realized.
The number of Ministries may also be in contravention of Article 76(1) of the 1992 Constitution, which states that “There shall be a cabinet which shall consist of the President, the Vice-President and not less than ten and not more than nineteen Ministers of State”, although it may be argued that not all the Ministers have Cabinet status.
There are also overlaps of responsibilities that either creates confusion or no ownership of execution. For example there is a general disconnect between the Department of Urban Roads under the Ministry of Roads and Highways and the Hydrological Service Department under the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing.
Urban Roads have in many instances constructed drains that have been found to have inadequate capacity to contain the volumes of water run offs, necessitating the redesign and reconstruction of the same drains at additional cost. Similar examples abound as a result of the numerous Ministries.
The existing Ministries are as follows:
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Ministry of Justice and Attorney General
- Ministry of Defence
- Ministry of Interior
- Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning
- Ministry of Food and Agriculture
- Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture
- Ministry of Communications
- Ministry of Education
- Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations
- Ministry of Transport
- Ministry of Road and Highways
- Ministry of Health
- Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources
- Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology
- Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development
- Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing
- Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts
- Ministry of Energy and Petroleum
- Ministry of Youth and Sports
- Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection
- Ministry of Trade and Industry
- Ministry of Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs
Each of the above 23 Ministries has a substantive Minister and a Deputy Minister or two. The number of Deputy Ministers is 34 bringing the total number of Sector Ministers to 57. There are 5 Ministers of State at the Presidency and 20 Regional Ministers, including their Deputies. This brings the overall number of Ministers to 82.
In order that the President can take his laudable idea forward and ensure waste is cut down considerably, I suggest the following:
- The Ministry of Football, sorry Youth and Sports should be scrapped and brought under Ministry of Education because this is where the youth are – the educational institutions – and where we can nurture and harness their sports potentials.
- The Ministry of Roads and Highways and the Ministry of Transport should be merged to become the Ministry Transport. The reason is that Highways is just one classification of Roads, just like urban roads, rural roads, residential roads; we even have cocoa roads and are collectively a subset of transportation. Roads and Transport are two sides of the same coin; you cannot have one without the other and should naturally go together.
- Lands and Natural Resources should be merged with Environment to become Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. The Science and Technology functions of the existing Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, such as Building and Roads Research Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, should come under the relevant Ministries.
- The Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture should not stand alone and should come back under the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
- The Ministry of Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs should be scrapped as the National House of Chiefs through the Regional House of Chiefs is already playing the role of the Ministry effectively.
- The Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations has no relevance now, with the extinction of the Regional and District Labour Offices and should be scrapped.
- The Ministries of Communications, Trade and Industry and Tourism together with Creative Arts should all become the Ministry of Commerce.
- Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing should become Ministry of Works and Housing and the Water Resources functions should go to the Ministry responsible for Natural Resources.
- The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection should come under the Ministry of Health to be known as the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.
Furthermore, the current practice of two Deputy Ministers for some Ministries should be scrapped. For example at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning where the Minister has a Finance background, the Deputy should be an Economist and vice versa with no need for a second Deputy. The Technical Directors for the various Departments should support the Ministers.
Similarly, Regional Ministers should have no Deputies because each Region has Districts, manned by Chief Executives who are the real implementers of projects and programmes at the local level. Each Region also has a Coordinating Director to provide administrative support.
Moreover, the Chief Executives of the Districts should be persons with business and managerial experience as the name depicts to be able to implement and manage projects and programmes at the District level. Each Chief Executive should have the ability to deputize for the Regional Ministers. This will make the decentralization policy meaningful and practical.
These measures will mean 14 Ministries instead of the current 23 and hence 28 Ministers including Deputies and 10 Regional Ministers. Assuming the Ministers of State at Presidency remain at 5, we will have 43 Ministers instead of the current 82. The difference of 39 Ministers would translate into saving of the equivalent of 39 V8 Landcruisers, 39 saloon cars and their running and maintenance costs. Additional savings include Ministerial salaries, housing, end of service benefits (ex gratia) and other office related benefits in kind.
Using the current cost of a Landcruiser at about Ghc300,000 and a saloon car (typically a Toyota Camry) at about Ghc120,000, the total saving in vehicular cost alone would be Sixteen Million, Three Hundred and Eighty Thousand Ghana Cedis (Ghc16,380,000) (i.e. (300,000+120,000)x39). This figure excludes the running and maintenance cost of the vehicles.
Assuming Ministers currently receive about Ghc7,000, this would mean additional savings of about Ghc3,276,000 a year.
The argument would be where to send the personnel of the defunct Ministries. The existing Ministers and Deputies may be assigned Board roles, Chief Executive positions or other commensurate responsibilities. The public servants would continue their technical roles as Departments and Agencies under their realigned Ministries or institutions.
This article is not a prescription but meant to generate debate on the size of our governments to ensure we eliminate waste and focus on the bare essentials.
My proposed Ministries therefore are the following:
- Ministry of Finance
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Ministry of Defense
- Ministry of Interior
- Ministry of Justice and Attorney General
- Ministry of Education
- Ministry of Health and Social Welfare
- Ministry of Transport
- Ministry of Energy
- Ministry of Agriculture
- Ministry of Commerce
- Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment
- Ministry of Works and Housing
- Ministry of Local Government
Small, they say, is beautiful. The slimming of the Ministries from 23 to 14 will ensure that limited quality human resources and limited budgetary allocations are concentrated in these key Ministries for efficient and effective resource utilization for maximum impact.
This would be keeping in line with the popular American axiom: “Keep it simple s**” (KISS).
God enrich our homeland Ghana.
The writer is also the Author of the novel, The African Agenda and the General Secretary, Ghana Association of Writers. Email: camynta@outlook.com
