President on course of composing dream team

A member of the Brong Ahafo Regional caucus of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Nana Opoku Acheampong, has described the nomination of Mr Collins Dauda and Kwasi Oppong Fosu for the post of Ministers for Water Resources Works and Housing and Local Government and Rural Development respectively as further example of the wisdom which has guided President John Mahama so far in composing the party’s dream team.

He lauded the careful balance that the President had so far maintained between the genders and between the old and the new guards as well as between the regions.

Speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic, Nana Acheampong, who was a member of the communication team at the Castle during the administration of former President J.J Rawlings, said for example that Mr Dauda who comes from the “middle belt” of the NDC generational ladder was a consummate politician who would bring to the ministry a steady hand and the required direction it needed to consolidate the work done by his predecessors.

In the case of Mr Fosu, Nana Acheampong said he was one of the most appropriate persons to head the important Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development both from the point of view of his practical experiences, his academic qualifications and his recognition on the international stage as an authority on local government administration in Africa.

He said Mr Oppong Fosu’s experience in local government was widely recognised by practitioners in the field and dated back to 1982 when he was appointed to head the Obuasi municipality as the first ever PNDC District Secretary.

“He later continued at Tepa as District Chief Executive before being elevated to the position of Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural development in early 2000,” Nana Acheampong said.

He said Mr Oppong Fosu spent some years thereafter working at the secretariat of the African Association of Local Government bodies, an association which he helped to found. Until he became Member of Parliament, he was the head of the Local Government Service.

Story by Musah Yahaya Jafaru