Scrap Council of State, anyone can advise government at no fee – Prof Agyeman Duah
A former United Nations’ Senior Advisor and governance expert Professor Baffour Agyeman Dua has suggested that the Council of State position should be scrapped.
He posits that people are willing to advise the government on policies and would not take a dime, thus the need for the Council of State is irrelevant now, especially with the deteriorating economic conditions in the country.
Quizzed during an interview on Accra-based TV3 about whether such a role is relevant he said, ”A good friend of mine at CDD said if a president of this country and for that matter any country needs advice, that president can call any of the 30 million people that we have in this country.
“So in other words, the argument he made was that is there a need at all to constitute a body of 35 and to be paying them, giving them vehicles and all these benefits when in fact advice was given to the president is not binding.
“So, one will question the relevance unless there is a way to shape it up to form it in a way but still if it is only to render advise then I will suggest, even though members of the council are experienced people, they are highly respectable people, I respect all of them, but I believe that there are some experts who can easily put together a paper to advise the president on any issue that comes up.
“All I am saying is that if it is a matter of advice, the president has the right to call any of the 30 million people for advice and not pay for it. “
“In a larger scheme of things especially, if you looking at our budgetary challenges then it will be one of the intuitions that I will recommend not to be retained,” he said when asked whether the Council should be abolished.
Prof Baffuor Ageymang-Duah praised members of the council of state for reducing their allowances by 20 per cent due to the economic challenges facing the country.
According to him, this decision demonstrates that they recognize the challenges facing the country at the moment.
During an initial interview on Wednesday, March 23, Prof Agyemang-Duah who is also the Chief Executive Officer of the John Agyekum Kuffuor Foundation said “I think it is exemplary of the Council of state. As the chairman said, their decision follows that of the government to reduce allowances of government appointees. So on the two fronts; we are beginning to see some visible changes in the crisis we have but this is just the beginning.
“Regarding the government’s own decision to reduce salaries of the appointees, I think that is also is good, I hear it is about 30 per cent. But salary reductions are part of what I will call the invisible because people don’t see, all they know is that salaries have been reduced. So probably, the government can go another step to do more visible illustrations of this new resolve to contain the exploding expenditure of the government.
“What do I mean by this? First of all, the size of government itself, as many people have said, is too much and I think if the government were to look critically at overhauling the whole structure of governance it will reduce tremendously the amount that we spend on it. Because if you look at some of the ministries and agencies of government, certainly many of them can merge, some of them can be reduced to low levels.
“I think, first, we can commend the government, we should commend the Council of State but I think they need to take further steps to dramatize to the public that we are in a crisis mood that we need to undertake austerity measures.”
