[ 2015-03-27 ]

Flagstaff House Warn Ministers Against Expensive Phone Calls
The Flagstaff House, the seat of government, has
cautioned appointees to be wary of calls they
receive or make while on national assignment or
private visits abroad, so not to bring unnecessary
and excessive phone bills unto the state.

Some ministers and other appointees of government,
have therefore, resorted to other means of
communication, rather than phone calls which is
very expensive when one uses his or her local
Ghanaian number abroad.

Mahama Ayariga, now Minister of Environment,
Science, Technology and Innovation, inadvertently
revealed the warning from The Flagstaff House on
Sunday, March 22, 2015 through his Facebook wall
after announcing he was going to be out of the
country for a period of six days.

There are over 85 ministers and deputy ministers,
and each has MTN mobile number paid by the
government. The number of the government
appointees on state-sponsored phone is unknown. It
is also unknown, whether some sacked government
appointees were still on their official phone
numbers and whether or not government was paying
for them.

The reassigned Minister for Youth and Sports,
before traveling abroad recently, advised his
friends, families and all interested parties, to
reach him on either via text message or whatsapp,
a social media platform so as to help him cut down
cost for government.

It is not yet clear how much government have had
to pay MTN and Vodafone by way of phone bills
incurred by ministers, heads of departments and
agencies. But recently, it was discovered that the
interdicted State Housing Company (SHC) boss, Dr.
Mark Nii Akwei Ankrah, spent a little below
GH¢40, 000 each month.

Unfortunately, the Bawku Central Member of
Parliament (MP), after posting why ideally, he
couldn’t entertain such phone calls, later
edited his comment replacing it with “I am
abroad for 6 days. All those who desire to reach
me should text or preferably Wassap (sic) ` adding
“I am mindful of the international phone calls
when abroad to reduce excessive phone bills.
Thanks. Mahama Ayariga (MP)”, removing the
Flagstaff House bit in his earlier post.

This comes at the time when the John Mahama-led
government, has been bashed for spending beyond it
means and also at a time when the nation’s
economy is almost on it knees, leading to an
International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme to
bring the economy back on track.

Two years ago, The Flagstaff House, placed a ban
on the use of air conditions in the offices by
staffers in a bid to check high electric bills.

Ministries, department and agencies, were also
later moved unto the prepaid electric meters also
to check excessive bills and wastage. It is not
clear, how much has been saved by this
initiative.

Unnecessary trips abroad by Ministers and other
appointees which came with huge traveling
allowances, were also reduced considerably during
the time tenure of ex-Chief of Staff, Prosper
Douglas Bani.

Again it is not clear how much money has been
saved from that as well.

Source - The Herald

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