On January 7, 2025, on the actual second John Dramani Mahama took the oath of workplace as Ghana’s ninth president, a outstanding occasion that was hardly ever mentioned in public occurred throughout the nation. By operation of the legislation, all administrators of all state-owned enterprises in Ghana have been concurrently suspended from workplace.
The Ghana Ports Authority, the Ghana Nationwide Petroleum Company, the Volta River Authority, the Ghana Income Authority, the Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage Authority, the Public Utilities Regulatory Fee, the Securities and Alternate Fee, the Nationwide Communications Authority, the boards of those businesses, and dozens of different businesses have been vacant as of midnight on the day of the inauguration. Part 14 of the Presidential Transition Act makes this computerized. It requires no presidential motion, no session, no trigger. The mere switch of energy concurrently empties the decision-making construction of the whole state equipment.
That is regular. Ghana has been ruled this manner for the reason that restoration of multiparty democracy in 1993. What follows the inauguration is a months-long appointment cycle that consumes an uncommon proportion of the brand new authorities’s political power and nationwide administrative capability.
In January 2025 alone, President Mahama introduced 42 cupboard nominees, 16 regional ministers, 20 senior presidential appointments, a brand new 12-member board of administrators for the Financial institution of Ghana, new service chiefs for all branches of the Armed Forces, new inspector generals of police, and initiated the nomination course of for district commissioners for Ghana’s 261 districts. By April 2025, additional potential DCE candidates have been being processed. The complete cycle from inauguration to purposeful restructuring of the nationwide management throughout all establishments will take the higher a part of a 12 months. The 12 months is just not spent governing. spent on appointments.
The query that Ghana has not critically addressed is whether or not this method is appropriate with the developmental aspirations of a rustic that has been impartial for practically 70 years. Proof suggests in any other case.
Construction of migration
To grasp what modifications when Ghana’s authorities modifications, it’s essential to hint the whole construction of presidential appointment powers. The 1992 Structure, learn alongside greater than 30 years of statute legislation, offers the President of Ghana appointment powers to quite a lot of places of work that the majority residents could be stunned to see comprehensively enumerated in a single doc.
On the high of the hierarchy is the Cupboard. In line with the structure, there are not less than 10 ministers and not more than 19 ministers, however the customized of appointing vice ministers, ministers of state, and presidential advisors has tremendously expanded the full variety of features. There are 16 regional ministers underneath the cupboard, one for every area. Under them are the district chief executives for every of the nation’s 261 districts, who’re appointed by the president and topic to approval by the district councilors, who’re nominated nonetheless. Every DCE is the de facto govt of the district administration chargeable for native service supply, infrastructure upkeep, and improvement planning. They depart when their respective political leaders depart.
Along with applicable political appointees, the President shall appoint them by advantage of his constitutional authority underneath Article 70 of the Structure, in session with the Council of State and the chairs and members of the governing our bodies of all public enterprises. Ghana had roughly 49 main state-owned enterprises and joint ventures underneath the central authorities as of 2016, in addition to a lot of statutory public our bodies, regulatory our bodies and different state establishments. A steering committee has been established for every. Every board of administrators is appointed by the chairman. Every will robotically stop functioning with the presidential transition.
The independence of the Financial institution of Ghana’s financial coverage is the premise of its macroeconomic credibility, and the Governor, Deputy Governors, and the whole Board of Administrators are appointed by the President. In February 2025, President Mahama appointed a brand new governor, a brand new deputy governor, and a brand new 12-member board of administrators. Their predecessors appointed by the Akufo-Addo authorities had ceased to carry the workplace. The establishment, which is chargeable for managing Ghana’s foreign money, overseeing the banking system and sustaining value stability, was fully restructured inside weeks of the final election.
The heads of regulatory our bodies chargeable for overseeing electrical energy charges, telecommunications licenses, securities markets, insurance coverage, meals security, environmental requirements, public procurement, and many others. are appointed by the president, and their continuity is just not assured throughout administrations. The management of anti-corruption businesses such because the Human Rights and Administrative Justice Fee and the Financial and Organized Crime Bureau function underneath the identical political local weather system. Ambassadors and excessive commissioners shall be recalled and changed. The management of Ghana’s intelligence providers is altering. The complete senior echelon of the state – those that set strategic course, handle institutional relationships, approve necessary choices, and symbolize Ghana to overseas governments and worldwide organizations – endure simultaneous, repeated and deliberate turnover.
What it prices and what you possibly can’t purchase
The direct fiscal prices of Ghana’s transition cycle are actual however hardly ever quantified publicly. Early retirement advantages should be paid to administrators and heads of organizations who retire earlier than the pure expiration of their statutory phrases. Recruitment and orientation prices for the appointment of replacements are being absorbed by establishments already underneath monetary strain. Ongoing procurement processes, regulatory research, and improvement tasks are disrupted when management modifications and sometimes require restarting or renegotiation. Exterior partnerships and bilateral relationships that depend on private belief between establishments have to be rebuilt from a decrease basis.
Oblique prices are structurally extra damaging. Research analyzing the boards of state-owned enterprises in Ghana persistently discover that appointment standards replicate political affiliation moderately than technical means. Again in 2010, a analysis examine of state-owned enterprises in Ghana discovered that the appointment of administrators of state-owned enterprises was based mostly on political affiliation moderately than technical means. The outcomes have been predictable. When the Division of Nationwide Pursuits and Governance first tried to provide a scientific state possession report in 2016, it discovered that solely two of Ghana’s main state-owned enterprises had entry to up-to-date audited monetary statements. two. The governance constructions of the establishments that govern Ghana’s ports, oil sector, energy technology, water programs, and main industrial actions have been extraordinarily poorly structured, with fundamental monetary accountability damaged nearly throughout the portfolio.
This isn’t a dialogue about private incompetence. A lot of Ghana’s political appointees are gifted, educated and genuinely motivated to serve the general public. This argument is structural. Establishments that restructure their management each 4 to eight years fail to build up the long-term strategic capabilities obligatory for organizational reminiscence, interagency relationships, and complicated governance features.
Electrical energy regulators, whose boards change in response to governments, can not reliably decide to multi-year price trajectories that traders in technology capability have to see earlier than committing capital. With a vacant governance construction on the day of its inauguration, and a reconstituted port authority a number of months later, it’s unable to keep up operational continuity that might make Ghana aggressive with neighboring ports. A central financial institution whose complete board modifications inside weeks of an election can not fully isolate financial coverage choices from the reconstituted political context, whatever the intentions of the brand new members.
Dialogue about expertise that nobody is claiming
Beneath the appointment cycle are deeper points that Ghana’s public debate has not adequately addressed. It’s the state’s elementary dependence on people as the first supply mechanism for public providers. In a system the place all the pieces is dependent upon who makes what appointments, expertise is inevitably secondary. Processes that ought to be automated stay guide as a result of the people within the related roles have discretion over how the method is carried out. Companies that have to be accessible on-line require a bodily presence. It is because the personnel within the related places of work haven’t been changed, changed by folks with totally different priorities, or not changed in any respect.
Nations that succeeded in constructing efficient public providers within the twenty first century did so by systematically eradicating human discretion from day-to-day service supply and investing it in programs. Estonia, a rustic of 1.3 million folks, handles 99 p.c of its public providers digitally, permitting residents to register companies, pay taxes, entry well being information, vote in elections, and work together with practically all state establishments by a single digital id infrastructure. Because of this, Estonia’s authorities providers shall be just about unaffected by modifications in political management. It is because the programs by which these providers are supplied don’t rely upon people persevering with to carry out particular roles. Even when the Estonian authorities modifications, the tax authority will proceed to operate. It is because, on the core of its operation, the tax authority is a expertise system moderately than a set of politically appointed directors.
Though Ghana has made actual investments in digital public providers (GhanaCard biometric ID system, Ghana.gov citizen providers portal, e-procurement platforms, and varied agency-specific digitization initiatives), these investments are inside an institutional structure that is still essentially human-dependent at its apex. The Ghana Income Authority operates a digital declaration and fee system that has clearly improved compliance as effectivity is important to useful resource mobilization within the nation. However that strategic management has modified with the administration, creating recurring uncertainties round enforcement priorities, audit methods, and organizational tradition that no quantity of front-end digitization can absolutely compensate for.
Importantly, expertise doesn’t get rid of the necessity for competent management. That’s, international locations whose service supply infrastructure is constructed on strong, well-designed programs, moderately than the discretion of individually appointed folks, are much more resilient to the political turmoil that Ghana’s transition cycle creates. Singapore’s persistently high-performing civil service, which was first acknowledged on this planet by Oxford College’s Blavatnik College of Authorities in 2024, combines competency-based human sources with systematic course of design that ensures the service continues to operate no matter who takes on a selected function. The system works. Folks don’t represent the system; they serve the system.
Ghana’s present structure reverses this relationship. Individuals are the system. When the particular person modifications, the system is successfully rebooted.
Official case for political accountability
Treating this concern with integrity requires critically partaking with the arguments on the opposite aspect. As a result of that argument has actual worth within the context of democracy.
Elected governments derive their authority from the mandate of the folks. When Ghanaians vote for the president and a majority in parliament, they assist a set of coverage commitments that the subsequent authorities is obligated to implement. Delivering on these commitments would require placing folks in positions that align with the federal government’s priorities to form coverage course. Even governments that win elections on a platform of financial transformation can not obtain that change if the whole state equipment, reminiscent of improvement authorities, regulators, and strategic enterprises, is comprised totally of loyal people appointed by the earlier authorities. The democratic debate about political appointments on the high of presidency is just not merely about patronage. It’s concerning the sensible governing capability of the elected authorities.
This argument is legitimate and applies legitimately to sure classes of appointments. These are: ministers who publicly advocate for presidency coverage and are straight accountable by parliament, senior advisers who translate political mandates into operational course, and politically delicate roles the place those that maintain the place should visibly symbolize the federal government of the day. These appointments ought to be modified with the federal government. It isn’t an issue to be solved, however a function of democratic accountability that should be protected.
This argument doesn’t apply with equal drive to the Governor of the Financial institution of Ghana, the Commissioner of the Ghana Income Authority, the Commissioner of the Nationwide Communications Authority, and the members of the Public Utilities Regulatory Fee. They don’t seem to be coverage advocates. They’re technical managers of complicated programs whose effectiveness essentially is dependent upon their experience, continuity, and independence from the political cycle. Fully reconstituting management each 4 to eight years doesn’t strengthen democratic accountability. It undermines the effectiveness of establishments and finally harms the very individuals who declare the mandate of democracy.
In precept, it’s not tough to differentiate between roles that ought to be changed by the federal government and people who mustn’t. It’s only tough to implement this method as a result of at present each classes of appointments serve the identical operate in Ghana’s political economic system of rewarding those that result in electoral victories.
What reforms are literally wanted?
Ghana doesn’t have to start out from scratch. Public Service Commissions have been constitutionally mandated since 1947 and exist already as an institutional framework for merit-based appointments, rooted within the colonial-era Harragin Fee’s recognition that neutral administration requires isolation from political management. What Ghana has lacked all through its democratic historical past is the authorized authority and political assist to hold out its constitutional features substantively moderately than procedurally.
Reform requires not less than three particular modifications. The primary is a constitutional modification that establishes mounted, gradual and non-renewable phrases of workplace for the heads of regulatory our bodies, state-owned enterprises, anti-corruption businesses and the central financial institution, with elimination just for trigger by a parliamentary process similar to that of superior court docket judges. Staggering the durations signifies that not all durations expire on the similar time, guaranteeing continuity between migrations. Second, a very impartial appointment course of for these roles. Which means vacancies are marketed, clear analysis standards are printed upfront, shortlists are drawn up by committees whose members themselves are insulated from administration strain, and the premise for the ultimate choice is made public. Third, a scientific program of course of automation and digital service supply that progressively reduces the dependence of service high quality on particular person human appointments and creates an institutional system strong sufficient to resist any political cycle.
This doesn’t preclude legit political appointments. The political management of ministers, regional ministers, and the president will change as applicable relying on the federal government. What modifications is the idea that all the pieces else ought to change with them. Which means the Board of Governors of the Financial institution of Ghana, the governance construction of the Ghana Ports Authority, the management of the Electrical energy Regulatory Authority and the top of the Income Authority are all, in impact, prizes to be distributed by the winners of every presidential election.
Ghana has been working this method for 32 years. The outcomes are seen. State-owned enterprises teetering between political course and operational paralysis, regulatory our bodies unable to maintain multi-year enforcement methods, central banks whose independence is constitutionally declared and successfully certified, and public providers that spend about 12 months of each four-year time period in varied levels of restructuring. This nation has no scarcity of expertise, ambition or dedication to democracy. What’s lacking is an institutional structure to translate these qualities into coherent and composite developmental outcomes.
The appointment system is just not incidental to that drawback. It is a mechanism by which the issue is visibly reproduced each 4 years, with out interruption.
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Concerning the creator:
Dominic Senaya is a UK-based worldwide relations knowledgeable and coverage analyst specializing in African political economic system, humanitarian governance and migration diplomacy. He holds a Grasp’s diploma in Worldwide Relations from the UK and writes about commerce coverage, institutional reform and the connection between Ghana and the UK for audiences in Africa, the UK and the broader International South.
