Pressure is mounting on President John Mahama from within the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to fire his Minister for Finance, Seth Tekper as Ghana’s economic difficulties deepen.
Last month, the Minister of Information and Media Relations, Mahama Ayariga stated that the forthrightness of the Mr. Tekper on the state of the economy is worrying adding that, the situation is making it difficult for government communicators to defend government on matters of the economy.
The Central Regional Communications Director of the NDC, Allotey Jacobs on Tuesday called for the dismissal of Mr. Tekper because according to him, the latter has given all indications he is incapable of managing the affairs of his Ministry.
Ghana’s economy has been facing challenging times and government together with the Bank of Ghana instituted some measures to salvage the rapid depreciation of the Cedi and also to strengthen the economy.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, the Managing Editor of the Al Hajj newspaper, Alhaji Bature Iddrisu opined that the President and the NDC “have imposed on themselves these pressures.”
He explained Ghana is used to “a certain economic and political direction” and with the country attaining the status of a lower middle income nation, Ghanaians expect “a paradigm shift in its economic drive.”
Alhaji Bature blamed government and the NDC for not properly informing citizens on the status of the economy “and this is why pressure is mounting on the Presidency and the government.”
He alleged that the relationship between Mr. Tekper and the Economic Management team headed by the Vice President is not very cordial adding that, the same exists between him and his colleague Ministers and other Technocrats in Ghana.
According to him, other Ministers believe the Finance Minister is “starving them of resources to work with thereby, exposing them to public scorn and unnecessary attack.”
Alhaji Bature was of the opinion that the economic measures which were introduced by the Bank of Ghana and government at the beginning of the year is failing because government did not seek the advice of other economic experts to test the viability of these measures.
“You need your colleagues to pull your heads together to see…what we can do to get a breather…to stabilize the currency which is also affecting the economy.
You have to try and assemble the experts because there is no one straight route to economic success. What you think can lead you to economic prosperity may have other challenges like what we are doing right now,” he advised.
Meanwhile, a former Chief of Staff under the Kufuor administration, Kwadwo Mpiani says the pressures as normal happenings within governments and political parties.
According to him, it is impossible to “satisfy everybody” when one occupies such strategic positions because “you take decisions which may affect people and if these people have a way of getting to the higher authority…to sort of get rid of you, they will do that.”
He however admonished President Mahama to fight and keep his Finance Minister if he believes he is achieving the targets given him.
“There will be pressures from other people asking you to go A or B but you know why you appointed him; you gave him some specific instructions on what to do and he is doing that work and therefore, leave him to do it,” he counseled.
Mr. Mpiani maintained that the President does not need anyone to tell him his Minister of Finance is not performing and “you don’t need anybody to come and tell you to remove the person.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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