As the government struggles to manage the economic crisis, former President John Mahama has urged the Akufo-Addo government to do away with the redundancies that have marked this administration.
“There are too many agencies created overnight without any functional necessity that must be scrapped or merged for efficiency to ensure savings to the public purse,” Mr Mahama said during his address on the economy on Thursday evening.
As an example, he said the Free SHS secretariat needn’t exist.
“The Ghana Education Service has adequate capacity to handle the implementation of the policy without the wasteful existence of another secretariat.”
Mr Mahama also said the One-District-One-Factory secretariat was doing work the Ministry of Trade and Industry could do.
“The so-called Special Development Initiative Secretariat and the accompanying Development Authorities must be scrapped, and their supposed functions sent back to the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies whose work they have usurped for sloganeering purposes,” the former President also said.
Mr Mahama has already said the spending cuts should begin at the Presidency as Ghana seeks economic support from the IMF.
He noted that “the budget of the office of government machinery has ballooned over the last six years from a little over GH¢700 million to GH¢3.1 billion in 2022.
“Substantial savings of GH¢1 billion or more can be made by slashing the budget of the Office of Government Machinery,” he added.
