Ken Ofori-Atta to survive one term finance minister jinx? - Adom-Otchere questions

The host of Good Evening Ghana Paul Adom-Otchere is asking whether former finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta will be re-appointed to man Ghana's finances.

In the country’s Fourth Republic history, no finance minister has served in office for the full two terms of a president.

However, Paul Adom-Otchere is asking if Ofori-Atta is likely to break the one-term cycle in the face of his track record.

Speaking on the Good Evening Ghana Programme, Adom-Otchere said finance ministers do not last in Ghana.

“Since the 4th republic, no finance minister has made a second term even when the president who appointed them gets a second term.

If Ken Ofori Atta is made a minister for finance. This will be the first time that Ghana will have the opportunity to give a finance minister a second term”, he said.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is expected to nominate persons to steer the affairs of various ministries.

History beckons

Although Professor Kwesi Botchwey served as Finance Minister for 13 years nonstop, a greater part of those years was under the military regime. Under the Fourth Republic, Prof. Botchwey was only Minister of Finance between January 1993 and 1995 before he handed over to Mr Richard Kwame Peprah, who served in that capacity until January 2001.

Since then, all Finance Ministers (Messrs Yaw Osafo Maafo, Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Anthony Akoto Osei, Kwabena Duffuor, and Seth Terkper) served for a maximum of four years, with Dr. Akoto Osei, who replaced Baah-Wiredu, serving the shortest period.

Thus, should President Akufo-Addo reappoint Mr. Ofori-Atta as Finance Minister, the latter will be on his way to breaking the pattern that all finance ministers have suffered since the advent of the 1992 Constitution.

It will also set him up on becoming the second longest-serving Finance Minister in independent Ghana, should he remain in that position until the end of the President’s tenure in January 2025 (without prejudice to the election petition at the Supreme Court).