The Finance Minister nominee, Ken Ofori-Atta, has denied allegations that he has populated the Finance Ministry with his cronies.
Addressing the Parliament’s Appointments Committee on Day 2 of his vetting on Friday, he said he has not appointed more than one director to the Ministry since he took charge in 2017.
He insisted that the Ministry still operates with most of its civil servants who worked there before his arrival.
Although he admitted that some technical advisors have been appointed under his leadership, he explained that their appointment was critical to assisting government to realise its objectives.
“Mr Chairman, yes, I have brought some technical advisors to support the work I do. I have also for the first time created two coordinates in Directors which have been very helpful given the density of work the chief director was under.
The former Finance Minister emphasised that all his recruitments, particularly, experts in certain financial areas advice government on investments among others.
“Mr Chairman whatever I did I really ensured that whatever needed to be done was done given the discussions with the Chief Director. I had to make sure that we didn’t break any code,” he said.
Some persons have accused Mr Ofori-Atta of recruiting persons formerly with his Co-founded investment firm, Databank.
This development, his critics say marginalises the civil servants at the Ministry who were already there before his appointment.
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But Mr Ofori-Atta believed that his recruitments and decisions had instead transformed the Ministry.
“I suspect that all that has been done over the past three years has been an enhancing factor and very promotional to the type of work that we now have the capacity to do,” he said.
