President Nana Addo Dankwa
Akufo-Addo has asked some former ministers in his first-term to take charge of
their respective ministries until his upcoming ministerial appointments are
approved by Parliament.
Reports say the President had
directed the Chief of Staff, Mrs Akosua Frema Opare, who has herself been asked
to hold the fort, to write to the former ministers for them to take charge of
the ministries for the effective running of government machinery.
The names include the former
Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, former ministers overseeing the security
architecture, the former Minister of Local Government and Rural Development,
Hajia Alima Mahama, the former Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Alan
Kyerematen, the former Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, and
some former presidential staffers.
The move by the President is in
line with the Presidential (Transition) Act, 2012 (Act 845).
Per the schedule of Section 14
(1) of Act 845, all ministers, deputy ministers, presidential staffers, such as
the Chief of Staff and the Executive Secretary to the President, and non-career
Ambassadors and High Commissioners ceased to hold office when the President’s
tenure ended on January 7.
However, Section 14(2) of Act
845 allows the President to appoint a person to perform the functions of all
those mentioned above for a specified period.
Section 14(2) states: “The
functions of a person who ceases to hold office under Subsection (1) shall be
performed by a person so appointed by the President for the period specified in
writing by the President.”
It is based on this that the President has allowed some of
the former ministers to stay on until the full complement of his new ministers
are approved by Parliament, as stipulated by Article 78 (1) of the 1992
Constitution.
The directive by the President
affects only substantive ministers and not their deputies or other office
holders whose tenure also ended on January 7.
MMDCEs still at post
Metropolitan, municipal and
district chief executives (MMDCEs) do not fall under the category of those who
automatically lose their jobs on the expiration of the term of office of the
President.
Rather, they can be removed from
office by the President, as stipulated in Article 243 (3) (b) of the 1992
Constitution.
This means MMDCEs will continue
to be in office until President Akufo-Addo decides to appoint new ones or their
tenure ends.
Many of the current MMDCEs were
appointed in April 2017.
CEOs of public Corporations
Per Section 14 of Act 845,
another category of people who cease to hold office when the tenure of a
President ends are heads of public corporations.
This was, however, declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in June 2019.
In a unanimous decision, a
seven-member panel of the court, presided over by the then Chief Justice,
Justice Sophia Akuffo, held that per Article 190 Clause 1(b) of the 1992
Constitution, public corporations were part of the public services of Ghana
and, therefore, their heads were public service officers whose appointments
were protected by the Constitution.
According to the court, the
appointments of such public service officers were governed by Article 195 of
the Constitution.
The removal of such public
service officers, it held, must, therefore, be done in accordance with the
terms and conditions of their contract of engagement or it must be justified,
as stipulated in Article 191 of the Constitution.
“To the extent that Section 14
of the Presidential (Transition) Act 2012 (Act 845) requires the chief
executives or directors-general (however described) of public boards or
corporations to cease to hold office upon the assumption of office by a person
elected as President of the Republic of Ghana, the same is hereby declared to
be unconstitutional and void for being in contravention of articles 190 and 191
of the Constitution,” the court held.
The judgment by the Supreme
Court affects all public corporations under Article 190 Clause 1(b) of the 1992
Constitution. These are public corporations not set up for commercial ventures.
They include the National
Petroleum Authority, the Forestry Commission, the National Communications
Authority (NCA), the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Petroleum
Commission, the National Pensions Regulatory Authority and the Ghana Cocoa
Board (COCOBOD).
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