Concerns have been raised that governments expenditure of six point three million dollars on the Constitution Review Process in 2010 may go waste.
In view of this, the Election Community of Practice and Learning ECOPL, a coalition of Civil Society Organisations whose interest lies in election and governance in collaboration with Star Ghana have called on Government to officially declare the status of the implementation of the Constitution Review Commission Report.
At a media briefing in Accra, convenor of the group Eyram Bashan bemoaned how only one of the 99 recommendations of the Constitution review committee was accepted in Governments white paper.
The election of MMDCEs appears to be the only recommendation to be implemented by government, out of the 99 reccomendations.
The constitutional review process, was initiated by former President John Evans Attah Mills in 2010 to fine-tune the 1992 constitution after certain flaws were indentified.
The most significant of the flaws appears to be the over concentration of power in the hands of the Executive, making Parliament’s oversight function ineffective. According to the ECOPL, nothing substantial has been done to expedite the implementation process for the constitution review since the 2016 general elections, after the government issued a white paper on the commission’s report in 2014.
Convernor for the group Eyram Bashan was worried about the lack of interest in implementing the recommendations by the committee. She said
“We are concerned that the $6.3million spent on the entire exercise will be yet another waste of scarce resources….ECOPL believes that a Constitutional Day without the full implementation of recommendations from the constitutional Reform Committee makes no sense if we cannot implement the recommendations.”
A representative of Star Ghana Mabel Viviey outlined plans to put pressure on government to implement the recommendations.
“There are a number of actions being planned towards the campaign one of which is a stakeholder engagement……following that we will develop a petition from the process to be sumbitted to the president”.
The group has initiated an online petition to drum home the need to ensure that the 1992 constitution is amended.
Story by Nathaniel Nartey.
