Governance expert, Professor Baffour Agyemang Duah, says it is an act of bad governance if a president fails to inform the people of an appointment that was made and subsequently terminated. The Professor says Ghanaians up until now do not know the status of Dr. Edward Mahama who was appointed Ambassador Plenipotentiary by President Akufo-Addo.
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Governance expert, Professor Baffour Agyemang Duah, says it is an act of bad governance if a president fails to inform the people of an appointment that was made and subsequently terminated.
The Professor says Ghanaians up until now do not know the status of Dr. Edward Mahama who was appointed Ambassador Plenipotentiary by President Akufo-Addo.
“That’s one strange thing about governance in this country. Certain things are done, and we don’t know the end result. Whether he is still on the public pay list as Ambassador Plenipotentiary, or the position has been taken away from him, we do not know,’’ Prof Agyemang Duah said.
He described the practice as bad governance.
“In good governance, one would expect that if Dr. Mahama’s appointment is over it should be announced. But we never know and we might never know until this government is out and I say that is not good governance and what did he achieve? I have no idea,’’ he stated.
In 2017, the President appointed Dr. Edward Mahama of the People National Convention, PNC, as Ambassador Plenipotentiary. Concerns were raised about what his exact role would be.
On Monday June 24, 2024, President Akufo-Addo again appointed his Executive Secretary, Nana Asante Bediatuo who has served him since 2017 as an Ambassador-at-Large.
An Ambassador-at-Large is one who is not assigned to a particular diplomatic post but on a special mission.
But Professor Agyemang Duah says, in his view, the appointment is unnecessary.
“I think it’s the status, because as Executive Secretary you are not an ambassador, but if you are made an ambassador, you are an ambassador entitled to all the privileges that ambassadors get and so maybe your passport maybe different. In the minds of the President maybe it is necessary, but if you ask my opinion, I will say it is not necessary, but I think the President sees certain things that I don’t see,” he noted.
Professor Baffour Agyemang Duah says no one can convince him that Ambassadors at-Large in the past have performed well.
“… you cannot point one, two, three or four Ambassadors at Large…they are just wasting the public money,” he posited.
Other ambassadorial appointments were made 6 months to the end of the Akufo-Addo regime.
This, the former Senior Governance Advisor at the United Nations says “at times also, the President feels like the last few months left, somebody wants to have the title ambassador so why don’t I give that opportunity to somebody who has been dying to be called ambassador.’’
The post Governance expert wonders the whereabouts of Ghana’s Ambassador Plenipotentiary Edward Mahama first appeared on 3News.
