All 31 ministries have submitted their handover notes to the Joint Transition Team, with the exception of the Office of Government Machinery, the team announced after its sitting in Accra yesterday.
Last Wednesday, the Chief of Staff and Leader of the Government Transition Team, Mr Julius Debrah, gave an assurance that “by next Monday all the other ministries would have submitted their reports, so that the transition team would know how to proceed with its work”.
This was after the reports of only eight ministries — Finance, Lands and Natural Resources, Transport, Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs, Food and Agriculture, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Defence and the Interior — had been submitted at the Joint Transition Team’s maiden meeting.
“Most of the handing-over notes minus the handing-over notes for the Office of Government Machinery are present here,” the Spokesperson for the government side of the Joint Transition Team, Ms Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, told journalists.
She explained that the reports covered all agencies and departments under the various ministries.
The ministries that have submitted their handover notes are Justice and Attorney General, Roads and Highways, Employment and Labour Relations and Health.
Others are the Local Government Service Secretariat, Office of the Head of the Civil Service, Northern, Volta, Central, Brong Ahafo, Upper East, Upper West, Ashanti, Western, Eastern and Greater Accra regions.
The rest are the ministries of Local Government and Rural Development, Education, Power, Petroleum, Water Resources, Works and Housing, Tourism, Gender and Social Protection, Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Youth and Sports, Communications, Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, as well as the Inter-Ministerial Committee of Decentralisation and the Department of Parks and Gardens.
Ms Tetteh also announced that the Member of Parliament-elect for Ofoase-Ayirebi, Mr Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, had replaced Mr Mustapha Hamid as the Spokesperson for the incoming government’s side of the transition team.
Consultation mechanism
She said both sides of the team had agreed, during discussions, on a consultation mechanism by which they would engage each other “if there are any issues that are arising out of the handing-over notes or any other matters that are pertaining to the transition”.
“And should the need arise, we will invite you for briefings periodically, but it will be briefing that is done and called at the behest of our two co-chairs, who will then make any information available that they consider is important to be put in the public domain,” she said.
She said they had also agreed on a working framework, completed the handover of the notes and “at this time the transition team will begin its work in earnest”.
The Administrator General of the Presidential Estates Unit, Mr David Yaro, then presented the reports of the ministries to the representative of the President-elect on the incoming government’s side of the transition team, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo.
Work on reports
“This is the beginning of the work of the transition team,” Mr Osafo-Maafo said, adding that after receiving the reports of the ministries, districts, departments and agencies, the team would go through them and ask for any clarifications if there was the need.
He confirmed that 31 reports had been submitted to the team, minus a report from the Office of Government Machinery, adding: “The other time we received eight; eight plus 31 means 39. The report from Finance, as it was read out to you, has been received and that is the most important of them all.”
Mr Osafo-Maafo asked for time for the transition team to study all the reports to ensure there was clarity, transparency and the smooth transition of power.
“We don’t want to get into acrimony because of transition; it doesn’t help Ghana because our image out there is relevant. The press should also bear in mind that our image out there is relevant. So as much as possible, we will go to work through consultation,” he said.
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