Member of Parliament for Asante Akim North, Kwame Andy Appiah-Kubi, has said that the newly appointed Finance Minister, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam, will hit the ground running.
According to him, because Dr Adam has been associated with the Ministry for a while as Minister of State, he is very likely to settle in quickly.
“The impact the new person will make will depend on how quickly he learns the rudiments of the ministry and how quickly he will adjust to the circumstances, the issues this time is different from the issues at the time we called for the new minister to be appointed.
“He was a Minister of State and so that was a learning period, and so he will hit the ground running. I expect him to bring his understanding of economics and youthful exuberance to bear,” he said on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday February 17.
Earlier, while speaking on the Ghana Tonight show on Thursday February 15, Mr. Appiah-Kubi indicated that Dr Amin Adam will not be reporting to his predecessor if the new portfolio of Mr Ken Ofori-Atta officially takes off.
Mr Appiah-Kubi said he does not have a problem with the new office of Ofori-Atta to the extent that the current Finance Minister will not be under that new office.
He said this while reacting to news that Mr Ofori-Atta has been given another portfolio after being removed.
According to sources available to the 3News’ Political Desk, the former Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, is set to be named a Senior Presidential Advisor to President Nana Akufo-Addo on all matters relating to the economy.
Speaking on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 on Thursday, February 15, Mr Appiah-Kubi said: “Sometimes when you make a call it is subject to certain urgencies of the time. It has come a little late but better late than never because if it had come at the time we made the call, it would have been much greater than it is now.”
He added “we will take it as it is and say thank you Mr President for listening to us. Indeed it is the prerogative of the President to appoint persons to to positions depending upon his vision and the strategy of achieving the vision so I will give that to him.
“He has the constitutional mandate to do what he has done but we were complaining about the performance in the Finance Ministry and we thought that if he wanted the Finance Minister we would perform better so if he has listed to us and transferred him from one office where we thought that he needed a transfer we will take it as it is. But we did not say that Mr. Ofori-Atta should not be given any opportunity to work with the government at all, we were saying that we thought if he wanted the Finance Minister our situation would be better.”
He added “If this is a position that will be superior to the Finance Minister then I should be worried but I am not sure it is.
The Finance Ministry has always worked independently of others, just that there is a collaboration, I don’t think there will be another portfolio that will be bigger than the Finance Minister and that the Finance Minister will submit to that newly created portfolio, I do think so. As long as the Finance Minister is not supplicated to the new portfolio I don’t have any problem, unless it becomes clear that the Finance Minister will have to work under the new portfolio, we will have problems.”
