President John Dramani Mahama has recently reduced the number of government ministries from 30 to 23, a move designed to streamline the government and fulfill his campaign promises of reducing bureaucracy.
However, Bright Simons, a renowned Ghanaian social entrepreneur, policy analyst, and thought leader, has raised critical concerns about the real impact of this reshuffling.
Simons, in a detailed analysis, argues that while the reduction of ministries may look like a positive step toward efficiency, it is primarily a response to public sentiment rather than a meaningful structural reform.
“Reducing ministries is more about reading the sentiments of the public, and in being responsive, than it is about actual government reforms,” Simons wrote, noting that public frustration with the optics of a bloated government often overshadows the deeper inefficiencies in the system.
In his analysis, Simons questions the rationale behind clustering and merging ministries, pointing out that successive governments have rarely provided any clear justification for such decisions.
He cited examples from the Kufuor and Mills administrations, where ministries like “youth and sports” were merged with “education,” only to be reconfigured in different ways by subsequent governments without clear explanations.
Simons goes further to question the logic of certain current clusters, such as the new arrangement of “water resources,” which he argues would make more sense if grouped with “land and natural resources,” given the shared concerns around concessioning and control.
He also suggested that “innovations” would fit better under “Science and Technology,” as innovation is an integral part of technological advancement.
Similarly, Simons questioned the decision to pull “agribusiness” out of the Ministry of Agriculture, asking whether other sectors, such as the “pharma business,” might also warrant separation from traditional ministries.
Despite his critiques of the ministry cuts, Simons acknowledges that the government is responding to public dissatisfaction with the size of the cabinet, which often appears excessive.
However, he cautions that this approach is mainly cosmetic and does not address the deeper issues of governmental inefficiency, such as the overwhelming size of state-owned enterprises and agencies like the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Police Service.
These agencies, Simons points out, house the majority of public employees and consume much of the national budget, yet they are not part of the current ministerial reductions.
He emphasizes that reducing ministries doesn’t automatically mean the government will be leaner or more efficient.
“Would there be less spending on bureaucracy across the government as a whole following the reduction in the number of ministries? Where are the financial numbers to prove this?” Simons asked, suggesting that such cuts often result in more appearances of change rather than actual reform.
He even noted that historical data suggests that government spending on administration tends to rise over time, regardless of how many ministries are trimmed.
Simons also highlighted the stark contrast between smaller ministries, which have modest budgets, and the larger ones.
For instance, ministries like Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, with an annual budget of under $5 million, and Parliamentary Affairs, which operates with barely $600k, could easily be cut without significant impact on the overall budget. On the other hand, large ministries such as Education, which commands a budget of $2 billion annually, and Health, which receives a billion dollars in funding, are where real savings could be found.
The Education Ministry alone accounts for over 20% of the government’s total budget.
In fact, in 2024, Ghana’s Education Ministry’s budget is double that of Nigeria’s federal ministry of education.
With such a substantial share of government spending, Simons argues that meaningful reforms in these areas would have far greater financial implications than eliminating a handful of smaller ministries.
Simons further pointed out that addressing the government’s budgetary challenges requires focusing on broader fiscal issues.
He believes that reforms in debt management, capital expenditure, procurement practices, and payroll systems are crucial.
“Ministerial perks should be on the list somewhere, for sure,” Simons said, humorously noting that small spending items like fuel coupons, workshops, and travel allowances can add up over time and often outweigh the savings from cutting ministries.
Ultimately, Simons is skeptical that the ministry cuts will lead to meaningful change.
“The work dey. Serious! But God too dey,” he quipped, highlighting the enormity of the task facing the government as it seeks to address long-standing inefficiencies.
while the reduction in ministries may be a step toward addressing public concerns over the size of government, Simons believes it is merely a symbolic move.
Real reform, he argues, must go beyond reshuffling titles and involve deeper structural changes to how the government functions and spends taxpayer money.
1. Ghana’s new President has reduced the number of government ministries to 23 from the previous 30 in line with his campaign promises.
2. When it comes to clustering subsectors to create ministries, every wise person you meet would have different opinions.
3. In the 2000s,… pic.twitter.com/QDvUwYW7SJ
— Bright Simons (@BBSimons) January 11, 2025
