Wednesday, January 07, 2015

IMANI RATES CHIEF OF STAFF OFFICE LOW


Prosper Bani - Chief of Staff


By William Yaw Owusu
Wednesday, January 7, 2015

IMANI Ghana, a policy analysis think tank has released a list of some public personalities and institutions which it says performed worse in 2014.

Leading the pack of the ‘least inspirational’ public institutions is the Office of the Chief of Staff at the Presidency which IMANI says “this office has been reputably ineffective and profusely wasteful,” in the last two years.

A long release explaining the performances of such institutions was contained in a statement issued in Accra and signed by IMANI’s President, Franklyn Cudjoe.

Worst Performers
Apart from the office of the Chief of Staff, IMANI also ranked the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD), National Service Secretariat and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) as some of the institutions that performed poorly.

Others include office of the Auditor General, Bank of Ghana (BoG), Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS) as well as National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) and the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).

Inspirational leadership
In spite of the poor performance, the policy think tank said other state institutions performed quiet well and provided inspiration for the country and therefore deserved commendation.

They include National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ghana Shippers Authority (GSA), Registrar General’s Department as well as Ghana Stock Exchange who IMANI described them as “leading lights for 2014.”
Franklyn Cudjoe - IMANI Ghana President

Bypassing Parliament
Explaining the reason behind the Chief of Staff’s poor performance, IMANI Ghana said “the Chief of Staff seems to have turned the Presidency into a hub for negotiating deals that never get passed in parliament or when they are sent to parliament, they are passed at the frightening speed of light.”

“Out of 23 oil contracts, only 7 have been published by the government. As Parliament has become politically unaccountable to Ghanaians on value for money projects introduced by the Executive, the Chief of Staff should be filling the gap.”

IMANI said in order to ‘redeem’ the image of the Chief Of Staff’s Office, “it must assemble all experts to advice the governments on all its projects to properly evaluate them.”

Special Mentions
The think tank also said the Ministry of Communications under the leadership of Dr Edward Omane Boamah had “effectively neutralized the damaging effect of many government’s untrained communicators,” adding “the ministry deserves commendation for increasing access to broad band services although at very expensive rates.”

It said Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) also deserved commendation “for clearly maintaining a credible database of all Ghanaian workers, quite different from the padded numbers the CAGD flaunts with greater dissipation of public funds.”

“The FWSC should be allowed to properly evaluate all public jobs in Ghana and ideally be the one that telling us who to recruit and how many for each government department, agency and ministry,” it said.

IMANI further commended the Ministry of Local Government (MLGRD) for the institution of the National Sanitation Day saying “the new Minister seemed to have found favour with many well meaning Ghanaians in his bid to clean the country of filth.” 

It also commended the Ministries of Trade and Foreign Affairs for dealing with the most important trade matter for the sub region, Economic Partnership Agreements saying  “as the EPAs will be signed, it is important for the current trade Minister Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah to begin plans for national conversations on how Ghanaians can take advantage of the opportunities in the agreement.”

“We at IMANI will be helping the government to effectively mobilise revenues for development through our work with DANIDA. We shall use our access to the international diplomatic community and beyond to encourage investments into Ghana.”



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