Presidential spokesperson Mahama Ayariga has justified President Mills’ decision to dissolve boards of state institutions days into his government. Mr Ayariga said the president could not have maintained such boards because their presence threatened the smooth running of the new administration. President John Evans Atta Mills, days after assuming office authored a correspondence through Mr Ayariga to the governing boards of all government organisations and parastatals to cease business. The president further directed that all appointments, promotions, re-designations, transfers, and re-assignments recently made by such boards would not take effect until new boards were in place and had reviewed them. The action triggered a lot of debate in the media amid accusations by the New Patriotic Party that the president had acted in bad faith. But speaking to host of Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, Mr Ayariga maintained the decision was crucial. He said the presidency had received intelligence information that suggested contracts were being awarded and re-award by the previous administration, including some that had earlier been cancelled. “Those were the issues that made the president to decide that he had to disable the structures that were responsible for the award of those contracts and the taking of decisions that unfairly bound government,” he stressed. Mr Ayariga also responded to criticisms of car seizures by persons who posed as national security operatives from the Castle, the seat of government. He dismissed claims that the vehicle seizures amounted to politically persecuting members of the previous administration. “…on the whole, if you do an assessment of President Mills’ administration the first three months, on the issue of vehicle in relation to the way vehicles were handled in the first three months of 2001 to a point where the then ministers had to go to the courts to try and protect their vehicles, you find that nothing really happened this time…” The former Bawku Central MP described events that characterised the NDC’s first 100 days in government and the president's performance as a major milestone. He stressed that the new administration had touched on the problems that required immediate attention. He cited the president’s 3-10 percent slash in taxes on petroleum products as a fulfillment of the NDC’s manifesto promise of reducing fuel prices. The reductions had been widely criticized as economically unwise, but Ayariga said the nation still benefits from that decision because prices could have been higher without the reductions. Mr Ayariga admitted that although there were excesses in the transition period, he said some of the issues had been overblown, describing the process also as a decent one relative to what pertained in 2001. He agreed the proposed IEA Transition Bill promises a better transfer of power. Mahama Ayariga also said the president had been faithful in keeping a slim government and reducing expenditure, explaining that even though he was unable to immediately quantify the benefit, significant savings had been made. Story by Fiifi Koomson/Myjoyonline.com