Former UN Senior Advisor, Prof. Baffour Agyeman-Duah, has suggested that government dispense off the advisory services of the Council State and scrap it altogether.
In an interview on Accra-based TV3, Monday, Prof. Agyeman-Duah said the council of supposed sapient senior citizens who proffer advice to the President has lost its relevance and that scraping it is one of the cost-saving measures that government can make in these days of economic hardships.
“Is there a need at all to constitute a body of 35 and to be paying them, giving them vehicles and all these benefits when in fact the advice given to the President is not binding? So, one will question the relevance unless there is a way to shape it up to form. But if it is only to render advice then I will suggest…that there are some experts who can easily put together a paper to advise the President on any issue that comes up,” he said.
The call is coming even though the Council took a 20% pay cut in commiseration with the government over the current economic difficulties the country is facing.
According to him, whatever advice the Council is giving the President can be gotten from any of the 30million Ghanaians in the country and therefore there is no need to pay for that advice.
“All I am saying is that if it is a matter of advice, the President has the right to call any of the 30 million people for advice and not pay for it. In a larger scheme of things especially, if you are looking at our budgetary challenges, then it will be one of the institutions that personally, I will recommend not to be retained,” Prof. Agyeman-Duah explained.