Recruitment into Public Service and Powers of Government

When exactly does a president’s power to appoint people into offices or sign upfor a loan or sign up a contract, end?

We have had an occasion where a losing president in the tail end of his presidency, made major appointments and his party saw nothing wrong with that.

After losing the 2016 General Elections in December 7, 2016, then President John Mahama made at least three appointments and one contract, within eighteen days left for him in office.

News broke on MyJoyonline on Monday December 19, 2016 that the outgoing government signed an €18 million waste management contract with SCL Waste Management Limited. Then on Tuesday December 20, 2016, Joseph Whittal was appointed commissioner of CHRAJ and Ms Josephine Nkrumah, appointed head of NCCE. On Friday December 30, 2016 Daniel Domelevo was appointed Auditor-General of Ghana.

Can the out-going government be faulted in anyway? Hon Haruna Iddrissu rightly reminded Ghanaians to take note that “the constitution clearly defines a four-year mandate for the president and acts that are done on or before the midnight of 6^th January are lawful and legitimate,”

On Friday July 26, 2024, the Chief Director of the Ministry of Health, stated that recruitment of 15,200 nurses into the public health services would begin on Monday August 5, 2024.

The opposition NDC immediately took offence. The party described this as a political act of vote buying. Citing similar occurrence, in November 2020, just before the December 7, general elections, when nurses were recruited by the Nana Addo administration. The NDC fell short of announcing that it would review the recruitmentswhen voted to power, but was emphatic that it would never allow the four-year cycle of recruitment to hold on.

On Facebook, the NDC Eye, on July 17, 2020, published that the NDC, between 2012 and 2016 recruited 41,480 nurses and asked how many nurses were recruited by the Nana Addo administration.

The truth is in July 2019, the NPP government recruited 20,084 nurses who had completed their courses between 2012 and 2016 under the then Mahama regime. Some nurses were also sent to work abroad. By the end of 2020, the NPP government had recruited over 70,000 nurses including the back log from the Mahama administration. By 2022, the government had recruited over 120,000 health professionals. What is the actual record of recruitments into the health sector by the NDC?

Now if, the constitution clearly defines a four-year mandate for the president,then acts that are done on or before the midnight of 6^th January are lawful and legitimate. So, what is all that fuss going on, about the current recruitment of nurses, months before General Elections?

The NDC says it is all about vote-buying, which is legally wrong. But how can giving people jobs be described as vote-buying when governments are mandated to give jobs?

If this recruitment of only 15,200 nurses is described as such then what about the over 120,000 recruited as at 2022? Sympathy that those employed will have for government will of course help make decisions on voting day, whether voting is two years away or two months away.

A qualified nurse or professional who graduating after taking a course of study, is made to sit years without employment, and a new government comes to offer employment, will surely have sympathy for that government. If this is what NDC will call vote-buying, then in amending the Constitution, timelines must be determined for employment into the public sector, which must not be done by government, so that it will not be call vote-buying.

Now assuming during an NDC regime with six months to General Elections, 15,000 professionals just completed their course and are waiting to be employed and there are vacancies, will the government recruit or not?

Seeing everything done by the ruling government as political opportunities will rather anger the beneficiaries. If it is okay to make major appointments and sign on millions of euros contract,with less than three weeks in office, especially when the party will not be forming the next government, then why criticise recruitments made four months to General Elections?

Giving how the NDC government of Mills/Mahama supervised the piling up of nurses at home and making them unemployed, one can imagine how nurses will feel about this NDC outburst.

This comment alone will create the resolve among these health professionals and others, their families and friends, not to vote for the NDC. Fear will be created that should the NDC come back to power, their conditions of service could be seriously tampered with, with salaries not paid for months, which was the norm during the previous NDC regime or at worse they could be branded political and laid off.

Salaries of newly recruits are not promptly paid by the Civil Service and it can take at least over four months. Will it not be likely that if the NDC forms government in 2025, salaries for these ‘NPP’ recruits will be withheld for over a year?

The Constitution mandates a government to dispatch its duties to the nation up to the last day in office, that is on January 6, after General Elections. So, what is the problem with the NDC? 15,200 nurses will be singing praises and thanksgiving to God for finally getting employed. Let all in the House say, “Amen.”

By Hon. Daniel Dugan

Editor’s note: Views expressed in this article do not represent that of The Chronicle

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