Felix Mawulolo Amegashie
P.O Box MS 422
New Achimota
Accra
June 9, 2010
The Executive Secretary
Constitutional review Committee
Republic of Ghana
Accra
Dear Sir,
PROPOSALS FOR THE CONSTITUTION REVIEW COMMITTEE:
I wish to make the following proposals for your consideration as a citizen of Ghana to the Constitutional Review Process;
1. APPOINTMENT OF MINISTERS FROM PARLIAMENT:
I propose this provision is reviewed so that Parliament can be left alone to concentrate on their legislative powers and duties devoid of Executive interference and manipulation while the Executive is equally left to pick and appoint whoever it deems competent for public office. I guess this will give true meaning to the multi-party democratic concept of separation of Powers.
2. APPOINTMENT OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL:
I propose that the Ministry of Justice is scrapped as it renders the Ombudsman redundant. CHRAJ must be empowered to deal entirely with issues of enforcing and ensuring justice for all citizens under the constitution. The Attorney General must be appointed by the President upon recommendation from the Judicial Counsel with a guaranteed tenure of office commensurate with terms and conditions of service of the Chief Justice, the NCCE Boss and the Commissioner of CHRAJ. This will grant the Attorney General enough freedom to prosecute those who fall foul of the law irrespective of the political head of state.
I propose this due to a rather dangerous trend of the state discontinuing cases initiated, prosecuted but left unfinished only for the sitting Attorney General to discontinue such high profiled corruption cases on the eve of handing over power to a new government because the Attorney General will automatically lose his office and has no prosecutorial powers anymore to finish what he started. It is huge financial loss to the state as many resources are committed into the investigations and prosecution of those cases. Again, it eradicates the temptation where an outgoing Attorney General could deliberately refuse discontinuing these cases and saddle the new Attorney General with the uncompleted case to generally prosecute members of his own government because he/she has no choice than to do so. It will create public discontent for the new Attorney General and even has the tendency to disturb the peace.
3. SCARPPING OF THE MEMBER OF PARLIAMENTS’ SHARE OF THE DISTRCIT ASSEMBLY COMMON FUND:
I propose this is scrapped on grounds that the Member of Parliament’s duties does not extend to undertaking development projects in their constituencies. Once the proposals in paragraph one are implemented, then the MPs will have no other business than sitting in the august house to deliver on their law-making duties and thus their share of the Common Fund will be totally needless. The District Assemblies must be given the Common Funds in full for the DCE and the Local Assembly to manage and to be accountable for. This will speed up development projects in the various districts and equally reduce tensions and “cold wars” between the DCEs and their respective Members of Parliament especially in areas where they both belong to different political parties. One will not use the Funds and its allocation and disbursement as a political tool against the other.
4. PROCUREMENT LAW MUST BE REMOVED: This would open up small and local companies to bid for government contracts and projects.
5. STATE SPONSORSHIP OF POLITICAL PARTIES:
I propose that the constitution must be reviewed to establish principles that would deepen multi-party democracy by providing a legal framework for the state sponsorship of political parties. The Political parties Act bars parties from raising funds outside the jurisdiction and thus cripples many of the parties who have interested sponsors who would want to support their cause especially those who belong to international political ideological organisations who would want to count on member groups to provide technical , material and financial support. The laws as it is now is discriminatory because the law is over bearing on the financial support while remaining silent on technical and other non-financial supports that are still quantified as “resources”.
The state must sponsor parties along the following lines:
• Remuneration for at least Constituency, Regional and National Executive members on salaries or allowances commensurate with their qualifications just like what pertains in the civil servant. This over will help draw very qualified and willing persons with the capacity, qualification and intellect to work full time for these parties without losing anything. I believe this would breed a new group of qualified and well informed technocrats into political parties who will serve with their skills and knowledge, rather than just electing any unemployed person and non-employable person (as regards level of education) into political parties. It would help reduce the wanton lack of resources that these parties suffer especially while in opposition. It has affected many minority parties especially as regards their performance in general elections since 1992. We must not sit to watch these smaller parties die out while we claim to promote a Multi-party democratic culture.
• CAPACITY BUILDING TRAINING WORKSHOPS: This is already in the system but with state sponsorship, as in the earlier point, it becomes mandatory for all parties to participate in these programmes and those who do not attend, are sanctioned by the law just like absenteeism and laziness is dealt with in the civil service. I believe this will make the parties engage more in dialogue among others and thus help reduce the clashes and tensions that characterise these programmes as it stands now. Parties cannot boycott these programmes because it becomes unlawful to do so.
• The sponsorship must also be in the provision of equal time and equal coverage by the state owned media (print and electronic) instead of the parties paying huge monies just to preach their message that is intended to benefit Ghana and not just themselves. The culture of the parties with huge monies buying all airtime in the heat of the campaign thus blotting out the less resourced ones will be eliminated. The voter becomes more informed and can have the luxury of deciding who will make a better government in order to promote our democratic culture. This will reduce the huge media bills of many parties especially the few minority parties.
• The criteria for qualification for state sponsorship must be determined by Parliament.
6. CRIMINALIZING OR DECRIMINALIZING VERBAL ABUSE ON THE PRESIDENT AND EX PRESIDENTS:
I propose that the aspect of the repealed Criminal Libel Law that criminalised the insult of the Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces and Head of State of the Republic of Ghana must be re visited. The Law as it stands now opens the President up for unsavoury verbal attacks and insults as we have witnessed in the past few months, on the persona of the President in the name of criticisms. The same Law maintains that it is an offence to insult a chief. I question the basis of this law as it appears very discriminatory.
The chief draws his authority from his subjects, who are mostly clan or tribesmen, but the president draws his authority both legally and legitimately from the people of Ghana who voted him for a limited mandate set out in the Constitution of Ghana. If therefore it is an offense to insult a chief, how can it be permitted under this same law to insult the President? The review must extend not only to the sitting President but our ex-presidents as Ghana will begin to count a number of ex-presidents in the next 30 years.
I believe this review will sanitize the use of foul language and insult foremost by the sitting presidents against their predecessors and the vice versa. This will again teach a positive moral lesson to the youth of Ghana that we can practise multi-party without resorting to unwarranted physical and verbal attacks on dissenting political opinions.
I hope my proposals would be considered.
Thank You.
Felix Mawulolo Amegashie
elolo.elolo@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment