The leader of the NPP transitional team, Yaw Osafo Marfo, has raised red flags about some government activities, including recruitment into the security services and regularisation of the employment of some temporary staff in some state agencies.
He said these were carried out while the results of Election 2016 were being announced.
The former Finance Minister called on the Chief of Staff of the outgoing government to arrest the development and to ensure that all other major government decisions are discussed with the president-elect’s Transition Team before they are carried out.
Mr Marfo was speaking at the first meeting of the Transition Team since its inauguration on Sunday 11 November.
“We have heard from the grapevine a few things which have become our concern… For instance, we’ve heard about ongoing recruitment into the security services now, which we hope is not true. We’ve heard of conversion of temporary staff…and some of the staff [you] took on into permanent public servants. We’ve heard of awards of new contracts after the election results were announced on 9 December. We’ve heard of procurement of and sale of national assets also after the results. We do not want to believe that these allegations are true,” he stated.
“…Therefore, I’m asking my colleague, the Chief of Staff, that…after the election and the results have been declared and the change is not from the government handing over to itself, there are two modes of transition. One transition is the government handing over to itself as it happened to us in 2004 and happened to NDC in 2012. But in 2016 government is handing over to another political party, so the system is a little different. We need to be cautious, we need to be transparent, we need to be candid, and we need to be factual.”
He appealed to the outgoing administration: “Within this period, if there is anything that needs to be done, consultations have to be brought on board. Consultation means that the office of the president-elect is there and if there is the need for agreement to be concluded, it is only fair and it’s international convention that you bring in the in-waiting government, discuss and get a green light to carry it out,” adding: “We hope our colleagues from the current government will take note of this normal convention and do a lot of consultation on these matters so that we have a very smooth and transparent takeover.”
The two later went into a closed door meeting to start their work.
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
