The price of ‘winner-takes-all’ in Ghanaian politics

In 1992, Ghana adopted the Fourth Republican Constitution based on the Executive Presidency system. The Constitution vests absolute power in the President under Article 57, which states:
“There shall be a President of the Republic of Ghana who shall be the Head of State and Head of Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ghana.”

The Executive Presidency model departs from the Parliamentary model of the Second Republic when power was split between a Prime Minister, who was only Head of Government, and a President, who was Head of State. 

Adjunct to the President’s absolute executive power is his power to appoint virtually all key public office holders. Key office holders who owe their positions to the President include the following (the list is not in any particular order and some positions have been isolated from the generic classifications for emphasis):

Key office holders

For the avoidance of doubt about the President’s appointment powers, Article 195 states categorically that:

“----- the power to appoint persons to hold or act in an office in the public services shall vest in the President-----“

While the constitutional framers may not have intended so, the President’s extensive appointing power has in reality created a “winner-takes-all” culture in Ghana. The fact is that Ghana has a highly competitive and polarised political system.

The country is virtually split right in the middle between the NDC and NPP. The common practice is that when either of these parties comes to power, the winning President is motivated and encouraged to reward his party loyalists with public sector jobs. Beyond party loyalists, cronies and relations are also showered with job favours.

This is akin to “creating jobs for the boys.” In the process square pegs are often placed in round holes as competence and merit are disregarded. The price we all pay for this practice is inefficient and incompetent leadership in political and economic management.

The motivation to satisfy as many party loyalists, cronies, relations, and other constituencies as possible invariably leads to the creation of an unjustifiably large public sector bureaucracy. It is sometimes difficult to understand the raison d’tre of some ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs). For instance, in this modern era, how do we justify a Ministry of Information (with two deputy ministers) and a whole array of officials and other staff, when a Presidential Press Secretariat is all that we need?

How about forming separate Ministries for Agriculture et al and Fisheries et al? And separate ones for Roads et al, Transport, and Communications? And how about a whole agency for Youth and Employment, whose functions could have been subsumed under the Ministries of Youth et al and/or Employment et al?

Creating such a large public sector bureaucracy comes at the cost of high budgetary outlays often at the expense of the needs of essential sectors like education, health, energy, infrastructure, water, and sanitation. It is not by accident that the Single Spine Salary Scheme, which is being implemented in the context of such a huge public sector, is consuming all of our revenue.

More alarmingly, it is now becoming increasingly difficult to fund other statutory obligations like the GETFund, DACF, NHIF and Road Fund as well as other development projects.

While this system may pertain in other Executive Presidency jurisdictions like the United States, the difference is that those are mature jurisdictions where there is a culture of supremacy of national interests over individual or parochial interests.

Ideally, as the constitution’s framers probably envisaged, one would have expected that the President would use

his appointing powers to tap talent and expertise across the entire political spectrum. But, in practice, this does not happen. Instead, it is the interest of political party, friends and relations that is held supreme. This attitude comes with considerable economic costs in the form of leadership incompetence and inefficiency.

The “winner-takes-all” and “exclusion-politics” culture in Ghana is quite detrimental to the country’s development. As a developing country that is still building its human capital, Ghana needs to make full use of available capacity for its development. No one party has monopoly over the expertise to execute the country’s political and economic agendas. Traditionally, Ghana loses large numbers of its professionals through brain drain driven by economic interests. The “winner-takes-all” factor further exacerbates the brain drain by alienating substantial numbers of professionals.  The ultimate cost to the nation is deprivation of the human capital needed to support development.

The “winner-takes-all” attitude and the problems associated with it have prompted the skeptical view that western-style type of multi-party politics is probably not suitable for African countries. These multi-party skeptics rather propose the formation, at least initially, of some forms of “unity” or “union” government, involving all factions of society. The advantage of such a system is that all available talent is tapped for development. It also avoids the politics of alienation/exclusion that often breeds discontent, rebellion, and strife that disrupt political and economic processes. 

Inclusive-politics delivers benefits to the people and provides the right setting for hard work and high productivity that engender growth and development. Attempts to institute such governments in Ghana in the past were, however, apparently rejected.

We add our voice to this advocacy. We have some specific suggestions to this end. Local government politicisation should probably be the starting point for change. This implies electing local government appointees on party lines rather than they largely being appointed by the governing party.

Further, while the President may appoint the heads of the Judiciary, Armed Forces, Police, Prisons, and public corporations and institutions, among others, the appointment of other officers within these organisations could be left to the respective heads.

This is in consonance with the Constitution, which, in several instances, provides for the President to delegate some of his appointing functions to other persons or bodies. Further, Chief Directors (CDs) of ministries could be appointed by the Public Services Commission (PSC) and should be entitled to keep their positions notwithstanding which party is in power.  The PSC should be the only body that can remove the CDs on legally justifiable grounds. This practice would revert to the old Principal Secretaries’ system that prevailed prior to adoption of the Executive Presidential System.



By Dr J. K. Kwakye
[email protected]; [email protected]