Accra, Dr Anthony Akoto Osei,
Minister for Monitoring and Evaluation, says he has tasked his staff to sack
workers that are underperforming in the Ministries.
He said like the President, he
also had zero tolerance for people not delivering, and would do all in his
capacity to make sure government flagship programmes were achieved before 2020.
The Minister said this at a
‘Stakeholders Validation Workshop of Government Results Framework for Priority
Programmes’ in Accra.
He said the country needed to see
results, and he was not seeing the results the way he wanted to see them,
saying that: “Ghanaians are not satisfied, and the Ministers have a mandate to
be able to tell us the progress we have made by the first quarter of 2020”.
Dr Akoto Osei said Ministers in the current
government were not allowed to give the ‘am not aware’ pitch at cabinet
meetings, when asked on the progress they had made on policy programmes,
exhibiting governments commitment to achieving its flagship programmes in time.
“My Ministry is not to overshadow
the policy progress monitoring and evaluation units the ministries already had
set up, we (the monitoring and evaluation ministry), on the Presidents behalf,
hold Ministers accountable to the President during cabinet meetings, and not
civil servants”
“If you are a Minister and you
don’t know what the objectives of the ministry are, you don’t deserve to be
there. The Minister is answerable to the President and not the Civil Service,
so the Ministers must own their programmes”, he added.
He said contrary to the
perception that the Ministry was formed to police his colleague Ministers, the
monitoring and evaluation ministry was in existence to facilitate results, and
not find faults.
Dr Akoto Osei stated that the
current staff of the Ministry of Monitoring and Evaluation was over-worked,
referencing that they had about 11 National Service Personnel and could use
more staff, adding: “we would need to add some more staff to be able to do some
work”.
He admitted that because the
Ministry was new, it had its challenges like any other new ministry, but with
monitoring and evaluation help from non-governmental organisations and donors,
the ministry would thrive.
Ms Nana Serwah Amoako, the
Special Advisor and Head of Government Results Delivery at the Ministry of
Monitoring and Evaluation, said there public service in the country had gaps in
its data analysis, real time data communication, and data collection in terms
of its monitoring and evaluation services and could be strengthened.
She said the ministry had
collaborated with other countries to learn modern and best monitoring and
evaluation ways that it would adopt to close that gap.
She said the Ministry would focus
on monitoring and evaluation of government flagship programmes while the
pre-existing National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) focused on
monitoring and evaluation of other government projects.
Ms Serwah Amoako noted that
Monitoring and Evaluation was an important sector that played a key role in the
development of the country.
GNA
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