A Governance Expert, Dr. Eric Oduro Osae says Ministers of State could be appointed from either political party faithful or members of the public or both.
Dr. Oduro Osae was reacting to a call by the Asantehene, Otumfuor Osei Tutu for a review or amendment of the 1992 Constitution to allow the President to appoint Ministers of State from outside Parliament for good governance.
He said there is however the need to consider competencies of those to be appointed.
The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has tasked political actors to consolidate effort towards eliminating the system of political patronage which has robbed state institutions of the needed autonomy to build robust system of governance.
He said that the elements of ‘clientelism’ and patronage, as a dominant feature of post 1960 one party state which is characterised by party loyalty becoming the source of all rewards has filtered into contemporary multi-party democracy.
“The twist and turns of our political history continue to cast their shadow over our institutions and the overhang of our conflicted past has robbed some of them of their senses of security and left them too fragile for their task,” he said
The Asantehene made the remarks on Friday when he gave a public lecture on the topic, “Leadership: Strengthening Democratic Institutions for National Development” at the 3rd Annual University of Professional Studies Accra (UPSA) leadership lecture series in Accra.
He observed that, accusations of cronyism and nepotism against presidents since the promulgation of the 1992 constitution would linger on due to highly politicised nature of public service whose autonomy had been compromised by a recruitment process that entailed political considerations.
“Sadly no Party since 1992 has shown the desire to reverse the situation. On the contrary, each Party felt obliged to sustain it because it provides the only means to reward supporters” he added.
He also called for a drastic change of attitude from seeing politics as an avenue to amass personal wealth to politics as an avenue of service which seeks to create an environment for citizens to flourish.
