The Prez Should Be The Last Fall Guy; But Not So In NDC – Pratt

Kwesi Pratt, Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper has questioned why the Minister of Youths and Sports, Mr. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah gave the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Agency (GYEEDA) report to President John Dramani Mahama to work on it.

At a press briefing in Accra in May, 2013, Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah said a Ministerial Impact Assessment Committee have been formed to investigate financial irregularities and challenges at GYEEDA.

After the committee completed its work, they presented their report to President Mahama led by the Minister of Youth and Sports.

However, Kwesi Pratt says it is wrong for the Minister to form the committee and present the report to the President for him to work on it.

According to him, the President should have rather constituted the Ministerial Impact Assessment Committee and ask the Minister to work on it.

“I am surprised at how a Minister who is the subordinate of the President, form a committee of enquiry and then when they are done, present the committee’s report to the President to work on it. It is unheard of…” he said.

Contributing to panel discussions on the brouhaha surrounding the alleged ‘rot’ in the GYEEDA report, Kwesi Pratt said it was wrong for the Minister to have given the report of a committee he had set up to the President instead of working on it himself.

“All these is because of a certain lack of experience…the principle in government is that you don’t sacrifice the President for any other person; the last person in government to fall is the President but in this current administration, anything that occurs is linked or attributed to the President…the President is blamed for anything that even a Minister does; so the president has become the first to fall in any crisis…”