Madam Ursula Owusu, a legal practitioner and gender advocate has raised issues with the Mills government for not appointing women to ministerial positions in Monday's reshuffle. She says she fails to reconcile the president’s promise of promoting gender equality and the 'blackout' of women in the new ministerial reshuffle. Madam Ursula was speaking to Citi News and said the Constitution enjoins the president to ensure that there is a measure of gender balance in the appointments he makes, however the no-show in the latest reshuffle signalled a lack of attention to gender issues. According to her, the National Democratic Congress in their manifesto made several promises to Ghanaian women in terms of actions they would take to ensure gender equality. “They were aiming at 40 per cent representation at a minimum, to all positions in the public service, in government, in the party’s congress. “The question that arises is that out of the eight new appointments made, how many are women? And the answer is zero,” she lamented. She said the government has failed to even achieve anything near the 40 per cent minimum it promised Ghanaian women on the basis of which many women voted for them. “I am drawing the president’s attention to the fact that there are very competent women in this country within his party who are capable of standing toe-to-toe with any male colleague and performing creditably as the males or even better and so he should go the extra mile and look for them and give them the chance to also contribute their quota.” Ursula indicated that her criticsm had nothing to do with her membership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) but that she is concerned as a Ghanaian woman. She acknowleged the appointment of 'a couple of women' to high positions but said it is not enough, explaining that the number is a token considering that women make up 51 per cent of the country’s population. She said 17 of the 79 initial ministers appointed by the ruling government were women but said the number has not increased although ministerial appointments have increased to 85. Story by Aglanu Dela Ernest/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana