![](\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Dr.-Asah-Asante.jpg\")
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Senior Political Science Lecturer at the University of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Asah-Asante has joined calls for some ministries to be merged.<\/p>\n
According to him, some ministries perform same functions so a merger will be ideal to reduce government expenditure considering the current economic challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cI agree because if you look at some of the ministries, they are performing the same functions, so why do you keep them? This is part of the prudence. Some of the ministries such as the Ministry of Communication and Information, what is the difference?<\/p>\n
\u201cPut them together as part of the downsizing, Agric and Fisheries, the people pointed out that and also a host of them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Speaking on JoyNews\u2019<\/strong> The Pulse, <\/strong>on Wednesday, Dr. Asah-Asante explained that government could further downsize to meet an ideal number of 19 cabinet ministers as mandated by law.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Constitution mandates the government to have at least 19 cabinet ministers. I do not want any number more than 19, let\u2019s keep 19 ministers and then the rest will be filled by a few deputy ministers and then the chief directors will take over from there,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Responding to a question by the host, Blessed Sogah, on whether the calls by individuals for the downsizing of government was a viable option to solve the economic challenges, he said, \u201cI think the reality is out there. For the government to see people in the street telling government what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot the case that they know better than government, but they think that government has gone amiss and that there is a need for correction and that some are suggesting that there should be a merger of some ministries.\u201d<\/p>\n The Senior Lecturer opined that the government could have each regional minister double as minister of state to help cut down expenditure.<\/p>\n \u201cImagine the 16 regional ministers double as ministers for the state, we are good to go, so that you appoint a few.<\/p>\n \u201cFor instance, Greater Accra Regional Minister who is say a Minister for Defense and then the rest of them. If you don\u2019t get the number [19] then we add a few, then we are good to go. Because this is the one the Constitution says we should have.\u201d<\/p>\n He explained further that the work of ministers is mostly done by technical officers, hence appointing many deputy ministers is useless.<\/p>\n \u201cThe work of ministers are done mostly by the bureaucrats, technical officers and all that and that you need very few. So plenty deputy ministers, we do not need them- because if you look at how much they pay them it\u2019s a lot. Their per diem or the perks associated with their office, we can make savings from them.<\/p>\n \u201cI support the call for the downsizing, it should be a very drastic one, so that we can feel the effect,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n DISCLAIMER: <\/strong>The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Senior Political Science Lecturer at the University of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Asah-Asante has joined calls for some ministries to be merged. According to him, some ministries perform same functions so a merger will be ideal to reduce government expenditure considering the current economic challenges. \u201cI agree because if you look at some of the ministries, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1262822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1262821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1262821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1262821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1262821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1262821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}