Senior Law Lecture of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Lawyer John Darko has opined that the president of the republic, H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has the power to appoint acting ministers in the interim until substantive ones are nominated, vetted and approved by the Parliament Appointment Committee.
He made this claim, in an exclusive interview with Silver News, in reaction to assertions by leader of the NDC caucus in parliament and MP for Tamale South Constituency, who described the recent appointment of some ministers from his first term as “caretaker ministers” as “unlawful “ and “illegal.”
Citing a Supreme Court judgement, the Tamale South MP explained that in J.H. Mensah versus the Attorney General in 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that there was nothing like “acting” or “holding” minister. “I have seen some former ministers still hold themselves about as if they are ministers. That is unlawful, that is illegal and unconstitutional. AS we speak today, Ghana has no ministers,” Haruna Iddrisu said.
But Lawyer Darko debunked this claim that in spite of that 1997 Supreme Court ruling, the 2012 Presidential Transition Act gives the President the power to appoint acting ministers in the interim but these “caretaker” ministers cannot take certain decisions such recruitment and budgetary allocations or spending or starting any project which the substantive ministers may have the authority to do so.
By: Raymond Okyere Komson
