He said the Government would not renege on its promise to serve the country with the rule of law and would ensure that such lawlessness was halted.   President Akufo-Addo gave the assurance when he addressed the media at the end of a four-day retreat of central government appointees at the Peduase Lodge in the Eastern Region on Monday.

He said though the Kumasi incident where a vigilante group freed some of its members who were facing prosecution in court for vandalism and causing harm was unfortunate, he would ensure that those occurrences were brought to a stop. The retreat was to review the activities of the Government in the past three months and make plans for the future.

President AKufo-Addo said the retreat enabled his appointees to determine the things they needed to do to realise the agenda they had set for the country.  He noted that the meeting also provided an opportunity to strengthen the bond of co-operation among the ministers who would be assisting him to deliver on his promise to Ghanaians in his four-year term of office.

“It cannot be one person or group of individuals acting at their own little corners. It has to be a group of people coming together with a common programme, common ideas and working to realise those ideas in a spirit of team work and co-operation,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo said the programme, which was attended by the Vice President, Chief of Staff, Senior Minister, and all the ministers, had given his team a sense of oneness.  “I believe these retreats are going to be a normal and regular feature of my government because collectively, we are determined to deliver. We want the Ghanaian people to know that all those things we said we were going to do, which we have begun to do, we are determined to do them,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo told the media that the policy where government officials bought vehicles assigned to them when leaving office had been halted. He expressed unease with the development where, after transition from one government to another, there was always the issue of retrieving missing vehicles from government appointees who had purchased the vehicles at ridiculously low prices, thereby grossly abusing the policy.

Thus, per the new policy, ministers and other appointees would be required to use the existing vehicles as they are banned from purchasing new vehicles. “No matter how dilapidated the vehicles in our fleet, we are going to have to make do with them. These are difficult times for the Ghanaian people and we should be seen to be acting and respecting that,” he said.