Kufuor: President Is Like A Coach, You Need Courage To Reshuffle

Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has waded into what it means to a President to reshuffle a loyal but under-performing appointee.

He likened the role of a president to that of a football coach and noted that courage is needed in that regard to carry out reshuffling.

The former President referenced the late Gladys Asmah as an example of a loyal appointee who had to be reshuffled from Minister of Women and Children Affairs to the Fisheries Ministry during his tenure.

According to him, he had to take the difficult decision although she played a pivotal role in his victory in the Presidential elections.

“Along the way, I saw that she was not pulling the support the way I expected from the ladies, the women. So I said, perhaps, Mrs Asmah will be more effective going to the Fisheries [Ministry] to open the fish hub for us [government], so that is how I did the reshuffle”, Mr Kufuor is quoted by GBC to have said.

He said this when he took his turn with the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) stakeholder engagements for constitutional review in the country.

He said, “So I didn’t reshuffle just for the frequency of it; no.”

“The president’s role is like the coach; not just a team leader. You have to know what your ministers are doing, whether they are being positive or whether they’re just being average when you expect more from them, and you should have the courage to say you don’t belong here, go there, or perhaps sit aside”, he said according to GBC.

According to Mr Kufuor, reshuffling appointees should not be seasonal but “continuous”.

President Akufo-Addo is unpopular for his resistance to calls to undertake to reshuffle.

In August this year, President Akufo-Addo said the majority of the ministers have done outstandingly well in their line of duties and therefore need not to be reassigned to new positions.

“That is a matter that I will take in an appropriate way. Several of the people who are responsible for assisting me in steering the country out of the difficulty we inherited and the difficulties that have subsequently come are still in place. And many of them have done outstanding work. Their output has been considerable and that is what I look at.”

He noted that assessing the performance of his ministers is “a daily preoccupation” for him.

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini