{"id":302454,"date":"2017-03-17T06:27:39","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T06:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=302454"},"modified":"2017-03-17T06:27:39","modified_gmt":"2017-03-17T06:27:39","slug":"i-need-men-for-unprecedented-challenges-nana-addo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=302454","title":{"rendered":"I need men for unprecedented challenges  &#8211; Nana Addo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The unprecedented problems confronting Ghana demand a large government, President Nana Akufo-Addo has said in response to the criticism fired at him over the size of his government, which has seen him appoint 110 ministers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t believe that my government in the Fourth Republic has big numbers in view of the swollen challenges,\u201d the President said in an interview with the Daily Graphic and Ghana Television.<\/p>\n<p>[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;0a4rqgfvgBJYoKNMhLHswo29AoUUkuMT&#8221;]President Akufo-Addo on Wednesday <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/03\/15\/akufo-addo-names-50-deputies-4-ministers-of-state\/\">nominated 50 deputies and 4 others<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0to serve as Ministers of State at the presidency and ministries, bringing his total number of ministers to 110, the highest in Ghana&#8217;s Fourth\u00a0Republic.<\/p>\n<p>The President reiterated that the initial <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/03\/15\/economy-is-weak-it-needs-strong-army-mustapha-hamid\/\">justification from his government<\/a><\/strong><\/span> which has insisted that, the weak nature of the economy, required a competent army.<\/p>\n<p>President Akufo-Addo said the problems facing the country, including the decline in the agriculture sector, corruption, the low growth rate of the economy, and the revenue leaks required bold measures to address them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are the background and the circumstances that were facing my government and the people of Ghana, hence they need a new paradigm shift to solve the problems,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p>In President Akufo-Addo\u2019s view, the end will justify the means, as he assured that his government was going to work for the people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a problem, and what is the best way? It is better to have men and women capable of serving the nation\u2019s interests and to work to grow the economy\u2026 If I succeed, you will soon find out the brouhaha is nothing compared to the success.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>All hands needed for &#8216;huge challenges&#8217;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t believe that any government in the fourth republic has inherited the challenges that my government has inherited,\u00a0President Akufo-Addo stressed to justify his 110 ministers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are talking about a country with a 74 percent GDP-to-debt ratio, a GHc 2.4 billion debt overhang in the energy sector, persistent decline in growth rate, lowest rate of 2.6 percent growth rated in the agriculture sector over the past 20 years, widespread unemployment, the major issue of corruption and the persistent leakage of revenue in our system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Given the &#8220;huge challenges&#8221;, President Akufo-Addo said it was his assessment that enough hands are needed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We need the cooperation of my party and my country that will allow me to deal with all these issues, and already the signs are that, this government in spite of these huge challenges, has begun to put some order in the circumstances of our country,&#8221; he stated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The unprecedented problems confronting Ghana demand a large government, President Nana Akufo-Addo has said in response to the criticism fired at him over the size of his government, which has seen him appoint 110 ministers. \u201cI don\u2019t believe that my government in the Fourth Republic has big numbers in view of the swollen challenges,\u201d the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[3,156,2369],"class_list":["post-302454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-slider-1","category-top-stories","tag-ghana-news","tag-nana-addo","tag-nana-addo-110-ministers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=302454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=302454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=302454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=302454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}