Private legal practitioner and Captain(Rtd) Nkrabeah Effah Dartey
Private legal practitioner and Captain(Rtd) Nkrabeah Effah Dartey has stated that the 1992 constitution of Ghana has to be repealed because it is the cause of all the political and developmental problems in the country.
He said that the current constitution bestows so much power on the President to appoint all manner of people into different positions, from District Chief Executives(DCEs) to ministers and even judges.
Mr Effah Dartey blamed the late former President Jerry John Rawlings for putting together the 1992 constitution to favour him and his government in 1992.
He cited the United States constitution as being made up of only three pages but they keep amending it to suit their situation and the exigencies in that country. Even so, he says America’s amendment will not amount to twenty.
Mr Effah Dartey pointed out that Ghana’s constitution is a whole book on its own with most of the contents irrelevant to Ghanaians.
He however made a recommendation to the President to institute a constitutional review committee to look into the recommendations of the earlier Constitutional Review Commission set up by the late President Atta Mills to come up with ways to write a new constitution for the country.
Mr Effah Dartey pointed out that he was shocked as the Local Government Minister under the Kuffour administration where he learned that the residents of the local communities do not have the opportunity to elect the leaders of their jurisdictions, a situation he says does not augur well for the country and its progress in the modern era.
He made this pronouncement in an interview with Kwame Tutu on the 100 Degrees programme on Onua TV, Wednesday, July 7.
He was speaking on the back of the political situation where the President appoints political leaders from the local government level to ministerial positions in the country occasioned by the 1992 constitution.
“It’s about time we changed our constitution even though it has been revised over the years. I will blame Rawlings because he wrote a constitution in 1992 through his constituent assemblies which dedicated so much power in the Presidency. I have been complaining bitterly through my speeches and writings about the way we appoint District Chief Executives is not the best”, he pointed out to the host.
He added “even me Captain, I wrote an article in the Statesman, Chronicles, Ghanaian Times and suggested to the President that given the polarised nature of the referendum the President should call off the referendum because it was not tactical in our own interest. The way the President has to appoint this man and that man based on the constitution is not the best, it creates problems”.