A former President of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) Sam Okudjeto wants the powers of the President in making appointments to constitutional bodies curtailed to insulate him from unnecessary pressure.
This to him is because various interest groups mounts what he describes as needless pressure on the presidency to appoint the wrong people and the whole nation ends up suffering as a result of these ill-considered decisions.
The 1992 constitution gives the President the authority to appoint leaders of certain institutions such as the Electoral Commission and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).
However speaking at a workshop on reforming Ghana’s Constitutional democracy organized by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) the legal luminary insisted it will be in the interest of the country if presidential appointments and its resultant corruption and favouritism are reduced.
“When you have different appointing bodies, it takes the President out of that pressure which is always being exerted on him…what we need to do is to insulate the Presidency from the pressures that are being put on him which makes the error of making wrong appointments and of course the whole mess that the nation will be in,” he said.
This is not the first time a request has been made for the powers of the President to be limited.
A similar call was made by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) which argued that the decision to curtail the President’s power in making those appointments will ensure persons appointed to serve in those institutions are chosen based on merit.
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