Cecilia Dapaah and the 5 ministers who resigned under President Akufo-Addo
Every president wishes to have the full complement of his/her ministerial appointees to execute his/her policies, but governance is not a smooth ride.
Various presidents have endured a painful reality check of not having their first team in action and may have to call on reserves, and President Akufo-Addo is no exception.
Ghana’s president has taken the long road of firing some appointees over issues that could destabilise his government.
Others also exited the government by submitting resignations for various reasons, including scandals.
Not all resignations within the last eight years were due to negative reasons.
However, the most recent is the exit of Cecilia Abena Dapaah from her role as Sanitation Minister.
This has triggered a look by The Ghana Report at ministers who truncated their tenures prematurely.
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- Cecilia Abena Dapaah
The media was flooded with news on Friday, July 21, about the theft of huge sums of money from the Abelemkpe residence of Cecilia Dapaah, the sanitation minister at the time.
Two househelps of the former minister and three others are facing charges before an Accra Circuit Court for allegedly stealing $1 million, €300,000, an unspecified amount of Ghana cedis and other valuables, including jewellery and expensive perfumes.
According to the prosecution, the culprits stole the items between July and October 2022.
This generated an avalanche of anger as the public wondered about the purpose of such a substantial foreign currency in a minister’s house.
This precipitated her resignation.
She said she didn’t want the case “to become a preoccupation of government and a hindrance to the work of government at such a crucial time”.
- William Quaitoo
Mr Quaitoo, the deputy minister of agriculture during the first term of President Nana Akufo-Addo, resigned in 2017 following accusations that he made ethnocentric comments against people from the north.
Mr Quaitoo, also the Member of Parliament for Akim Oda, said that northern farmers could not be trusted in the assessment of damage caused by fall armyworms.
He further intimated that calls for government compensation for farm losses from the northern farmers were simply a ploy to fleece the state.
He made the comments in a radio interview during a discussion on the impact of fall armyworms on farms in the Northern Region.
After backlash from the public, he issued an apology and later resigned from his office.
- Otiko Afisa Djaba
The vociferous Otiko Afisa Djaba was appointed minister of gender, children and social protection when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) took over the reins of government in 2017.
In a reshuffle by President Nana Akufo-Addo in 2018 that would have seen her become Ghana’s Ambassador to Italy, she opted to hang her boots instead.
She further bowed out of politics after more than a decade of active duties so that she could enjoy life with her children.
- Rockson Bukari
Minister of State at the Office of the President, Rockson Bukari, resigned effective Monday, April 29, 2019.
His action was necessitated by reports of his alleged involvement in an attempt to bribe a journalist to drop a story against a mining firm.
When he was Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Bukari was heard on a leaked tape attempting to bribe journalist Edward Adeti to kill a story against a judge and a Chinese mining firm.
He denied the bribery allegation in a statement, insisting he was only intervening.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the minister’s approach by way of pleading with Adeti is typical with his peace-making intervention approach to situations, and in this case, sought to avoid what he was informed was a misjudgment which could hurt the reputation of a retiring judge in the region he had superintended as a minister,” a statement from his office said.
The journalist also reacted to the minister’s statement and called for his head.
Although the minister denied the allegations, he formally tendered his resignation.
- Alan Kyerematen
Mr Alan Kyerematen is one of the veteran ministers of the NPP.
When the NPP won the elections in 2000, President John Agyekum Kufuor appointed Mr Kyerematen as trade minister.
After serving for years, he resigned in 2007 to go and contest the flagbearer race of the NPP, which was won by Nana Akufo-Addo ahead of the 2008 elections.
It is the same scenario again after he was appointed as trade minister for the second time under the Akufo-Addo government.
Mr Kyerematen, who has his eyes set on the presidency, resigned again and submitted a letter to that effect to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Thursday, January 5, 2023.
He is one of the five candidates shortlisted for the NPP flagbearer slot ahead of the party’s primaries.
- Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto
Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto is an agricultural economist and was the ranking member of the parliament’s agriculture committee when he was the MP for Kwadaso.
He lost the NPP primaries in 2015 and didn’t return to parliament, but he was appointed food and agriculture minister under President Akufo-Addo’s regime.
With his father being a prominent member of the pre-independence National Liberation Movement (NLM) who was involved in activities leading to the formation of the United Party, the precursor of the NPP, Dr Afriyie Akoto believes the NPP should give him the mandate to be flagbearer to lead the party into the 2024 polls.
He, therefore, submitted his resignation letter to President Akufo-Addo on January 10, 2023, to follow his presidential dreams.
He is also part of the five candidates shortlisted for the NPP flagbearer slot ahead of the party’s primaries.