We need a reduction in appointees, not reshuffle – Dr. Amoako Baah tells Akufo-Addo

Political Science Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr. Amoako Baah has criticized President Akufo-Addo for reshuffling his appointees. In an interview on JoyNews’ The Pulse on Tuesday monitored by Soireenews.com, Dr. Amoako Baah said a change in ministerial appointment is not what is needed at the moment of economic crisis. Rather than reshuffling ministers, Dr. Amoako Baah believes the government should consider reducing its size. “What he [government] did [reshuffle] is not what is critical, that is not what is needed, we need a reduction in numbers of appointees so that government expenditure goes down. Every action the President takes now must be in this line – reduction on expenditure,” he stated. He continued “the reason why the inflation is so high and we are not able to do anything is because of the fiscal policy of the government. We tend to talk about the monetary policy from the Bank of Ghana –that is not where it is, it is the fiscal policy. We are spending more money than taking in". His comment follows the President's letter to inform the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin of changes in his government. According to Dr. Baah, the only way to go is to cut down on the government’s budget, adding that when this is done, it will go a long way in helping in the debt restructuring programme. He further called for the suspension of the government’s infrastructure development for a while. He proposed that such development projects should be grouped according to the order of merit. “We should group them from critical to normal and so forth, so we know which one to tackle first. Some projects we just started, suspend all of them…,” he said.