Governance expert, Prof. Baffour Agyeman-Duah, has described the government’s ambitious realignment of ministries as a significant step toward efficiency but warned of challenges with managing staff from collapsed and merged ministries during the Ministry Realignment.
He emphasized that transferring all personnel wholesale to new or existing ministries could derail the intended cost-cutting goals and create additional inefficiencies in the Ministry Realignment process.
“The whole idea is cutting cost. So naturally you expect some downgrading, some layoffs—I don’t know if they will call it so—or maybe they will move them to other areas that are in need of additional personnel so that we don’t create more unemployment among the civil servants,” he said in an interview with The High Street Journal.
The Civil Service (Ministries) Instrument, 2025, has reduced the number of ministries from 36 to 23, a bold decision aimed at eliminating redundancies and streamlining operations in the context of the Ministry Realignment.
However, Prof. Agyeman-Duah noted that the critical need for careful management of civil servants during the transition to avoid overcrowding ministries or undermining the cost-saving objectives of the Ministry Realignment.
“Well, that will be the challenge for the civil service, certainly. Ministries that have been collapsed—I don’t know whether they are going to send the same number of people to the new ones they have created. That will make no sense at all,” he remarked.
The governance expert noted that indiscriminate transfers during the realignment could lead to bloated ministries and increased operational bottlenecks, ultimately shifting the problems rather than solving them. Instead, he suggested that staff should be strategically reassigned to areas within government that genuinely require additional personnel.
This approach, he said, would ensure that resources are allocated effectively and the civil service is better positioned to support the government’s objectives post-Ministry Realignment.
“So I’m sure they are going to find a way to fix them up in different places, but I hope that it will not be a wholesale transfer of staff to other areas of government. Otherwise, the whole idea of reducing expenditure will not make any sense,” he cautioned.
With new ministries such as the Ministry of Energy and Green Transition and the Ministry of Youth Development and Empowerment requiring specialized skills, there is an opportunity to match civil servants’ expertise with the needs of these emerging portfolios perfectly aligned with the concept of Ministry Realignment.
This, he noted, could not only save costs but also improve the overall functionality of government through the Ministry Realignment.
