By Maxwell Ofori [email protected] Mr. Yaw Osafo Maafo, representative of the President-elect, Nana Akufo-Addo, on the Presidential Transmission Team, has appealed to the transition team on the side of the government to be cautious, transparent, candid and factual within these few periods before officially handing over to the next government. He said that it […]
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By Maxwell Ofori
Mr. Yaw Osafo Maafo, representative of the President-elect, Nana Akufo-Addo, on the Presidential Transmission Team, has appealed to the transition team on the side of the government to be cautious, transparent, candid and factual within these few periods before officially handing over to the next government.
He said that it would be prudent for the sitting government, before the official hand-over, to involve the team from the President-elect’s side in everything that needs to be done.
Addressing the Presidential Transition Teams yesterday at their first meeting after the official inauguration, Mr. Osafo Maafo stated that his team had heard of some ongoing recruitments and signing of contracts by government institutions after the elections, which had the tendency of preventing transparency, as his side was not consulted on those actions by the government after the declaration of the presidential results.
He reiterated some advice given by the outgoing President and the incoming President, Mr. John Mahama and Nana Akufo-Addo respectively, during the inaugural ceremony, that pointed to the fact there should be a smooth and transparent take-over, and urged that both teams to be guided by those statements.
“Mahama and the President-elect, Nana Akufo-Addo, during the inaugural ceremony, made it very clear that we should have a smooth and transparent take-over, and we want to be guided by these statements they made.”
The former finance minister in the erstwhile Kufour administration explained the need for the work of the teams to be as frank as possible, citing:“… because, when you are taking over, let’s say as a minister of finance, you need to be factual; you need to be numerical; you need to be time conscious…”
He further noted: “We have heard from the grape vine a few things which have become our concern, talking about the incoming government’s transition team. For instance, about ongoing recruitment into the security services now, which we hope is not true. We’ve heard of conversion of temporary staff of political assistance into permanent public servants.
“We’ve heard of awards of new contracts after the elections results were announced on the 9th of December. We’ve heard of procurement and sale of national assets after the results. We do not want to believe that these allegations are true. I, personally, don’t know. And, therefore, I’m asking my colleague, the Chief of Staff, that after the elections and the results have been declared and the change is not from the government handing over to itself, but to a different political party’s government, the system is a little different; we need to be cautious; we need to be transparent; we need to be candid; and we need to be factual. We are, therefore, appealing to our colleagues that within this period if there’s anything that need to be done, consultation has to be brought on board.”
Though the expectations were that the Chief of Staff, Mr. Julius Debrah, leading the team from government, would respond to Mr. Osafo Maafo when he took turn to address the transitional team yesterday, the contrary was witnessed.
However, the Spokesperson for the government’s team, Mad. Hannah Tetteh, who is the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration till the eve of 6th January, told journalists after the meeting that she was unaware of any contracts being signed.
She indicated that her team from the government side would be in a better position to clarify issues with the team of the incoming government, should they ask specific questions about which contract was being signed by which sector, so that checks could be done to ascertain the veracity or otherwise of the issues raised.
Meanwhile, Mad S. Hannah Tetteh noted that she had seen advertisements in the papers, suggesting that the Ghana Armed Forces was conducting a recruitment exercise. She continued that the advertisement for applications was ongoing, and was highly unlikely that the recruitment exercise would be concluded before the 7th of January, in which case, the incoming administration would then have the responsibility, and would have the oversight, to see how the exercise is concluded.
“Remember that when we have a transfer of political power, the State of Ghana remains the state. Actions that were taken with proper authorisation, prior to the elections, are actions on which those institutions can take further action, because of the time that they were authorised to. The persons who are giving them the authorisation to do so have the legal mandate to be able to do so…,” she opined
The incumbent Member of Parliament for Awutu-Senya West Constituency further added in relation to the first meeting of the team, which was held yesterday, that both teams have agreed on the composition of the committees of the transition.
According to her, in the Presidential Transitions Act, three committees are provided, but there is also an opportunity to form other committees, so they have agreed on the committees for the process.
Responding to whether or not the government’s team had made available all the handing over notes to the team of the incoming administration, she detailed that some of the handing over notes have been made available, but more would be made available in the course of the week.
“So the incoming government’s team now has the opportunity to review those documents. We have agreed that the transition will meet again next week Monday, and so, between now and then, we assume that the documentation that is made available to them would be reviewed, and if they have any questions on government’s side, they have the liberty to ask. We are working to ensure a smooth process of hand-over; that is essentially what the establishment of the transition team is for, and what the work they are doing is geared towards. And so the processes that we have just begun are to ensure that we can have clarity between the two teams, as to what was the position as at the time they will take office on 7th January, and, therefore, that it is what they have in hand…”
Ostensibly, out of the over twenty handing-over notes, Mustapha Hamid, Spokesperson for the President-elect, told journalists that “some handing-over notes of some seven ministries have been given to us, so our team is also going to look at these handing-over notes and questions that would arise; we’ve agreed on modalities and procedures for asking questions, and how those questions would be answered.”
Meanwhile, our checks revealed that the following handing-over notes were given as of yesterday; Lands and Natural Resources, Transport, Chieftaincy, Food and Agriculture, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Interior, Defence, and Trade and Industry.
In 2009, about GH¢135, 316 was spent on refreshment for the then transitional team, which was handing over to itself.
Commenting on how whether or not such amount would be spent this time, the spokesperson of the incoming government’s team stated that “by all means, if you hold any meeting there would be some little refreshment. But I’m not on the government side to know how it was done, but I’m sure that they (those on the government side) have learnt their lesson from the previous years.”
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