A former Minister of Defence under the John Agyekum Kufuor government, Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufuor, has intimated that the first cabinet put together by the former president was one of Ghana’s best ever.

According to him, the calibre of the people handpicked by the former president, many of whom cut across many spheres of life, made it a delight for him to work with them.

Contained in his memoir titled, Gold Coast Boy, Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufuor, the former minister carefully outlined the qualifications of the people who made up that cabinet, stressing that they made meetings a delight to be in.

“I have taken the trouble to highlight the professional and political backgrounds of the members of the first cabinet put together by President Kufuor for two main reasons. First is to exemplify Micheavelli's wisdom in the quotation at the beginning of the chapter. The ‘men’ the president had ‘around him’ were ‘capable and faithful.’

“The second reason is to stress the point that citizens who wish to serve their nation at the executive level must have acquired the requisite training and experience, in their respective fields, so that they are better able to serve. Ideally, politics should be regarded as an avenue of service to one's compatriots, and not a platform for employment.

“The quality of the president's cabinet was such that it was almost always a pleasure to attend meetings and listen to discussions on proposals and position papers. It always appeared that members had researched and prepared for discussions; they showed so much familiarity with the documents and their content. And they spoke and argued cogently, logically and with some authority,” he wrote.

Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufuor added that due to this, he was of the belief that Ghana had been blessed with some of the finest brains in any political dispensation in the country.

“I always felt that the people of Ghana were lucky to have men and women of such calibre helping the president to manage the affairs of state at the time,” he added.

In the photo snippets of the book below, you can read the full details of all that he said in this regard: