Mahama is decisive and authoritative – Sulley Gariba

He said the decision of the President marked a return to the era where regional ministers did not necessarily come from their home regions an era, he said, witnessed fairly rapid development in the regions.

According to Myjoyonline, Dr Gariba said President Mahama wanted “to send a strong message that whether you are from the Northern Region, Central Region or Western Region, your singular purpose is to preside over the delivery of the President’s vision.”

President Mahama has received a lot of flak for reshuffling his regional ministers even before some of them assumed office.

But the policy coordinators said the criticisms were misplaced.

Dr Gariba believed it was the President’s intention to make the regional ministers head regions other than their regions of origin right from the time they were appointed.

“President Mahama has chosen to ensure that we have a cohesive national development agenda co-ordinated at the regional level by persons of competence and confidence who don’t necessarily come from those areas,” he stated.

For him, the arguments from some regions in the wake of the appointments that members of the dominant ethnic groups should be considered for either the minister or deputy minister’s position makes the President’s decision even more justifiable.

Asked why the President did not appoint the ministers directly to their current designations, Dr Gariba said the question was moot.

“The President assigns people to where he feels their competence is most rewarding and this is one decision that he has taken that allows us to focus on the development agenda; whether it was what we wanted to do from the beginning or what he has done from some other circumstances is a moot question,” he stated.

The Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr Emmanuel Akwetey, agreed largely with Dr Gariba.

He said he was against the increasing regionalisation and ethnicisation of the country.

He supported the fact that the President’s decision served to diminish those tendencies.