A Transportation Expert and Policy Analyst, Dr. Camynta Baezie, has suggested to government to collapse some of its ministries and merge them with others to save Ghana about GH¢ 20 million.
According to him, most of the current ministries could be merged, arguing that several of them have overlapping responsibilities.
He said in an article that, the number of ministries should be lowered to “14 Ministries instead of the current 23 and hence 28 Ministers including Deputies and 10 Regional Ministers.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”cKL4Y12REgtJ2kPLqDKjIwQOJ2Fli9pe”]He further suggested that the Ministry of 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.”
He also called the Ministry of Roads and Highways and the Ministry of Transport to be merged, stating 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.”
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday, Dr. Baezie reiterated his stance, stating that fewer ministers and ministries would help save about GH¢16,380,000 from cutbacks in the purchase of vehicles for the ministers and their deputies.
Dr. Baezie believes that too much money is being spent on the individual ministries with a lot of unnecessary expenses on items like television sets and air conditioners.
“We have too many televisions in the ministries. In one ministry, they had 16 televisions, 32 fridges and 60 individual air conditioning units.”
“Even if you take out the cost of acquiring the physical assets alone, the electicity cost….”
He added that the country could also save about GH¢3,276,000 on the salaries of those ministers.
“Assuming Ministers currently receive about GHC7,000 and the ministries are reduced, this would mean additional savings of about GHC3,276,000 a year.
By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana