Don't Sign 'Bad' Major Mahama Bill - Nana Ofori Owusu To Akufo-Addo

Director of Operations of the Progressive People's Party (PPP) Nana Ofori Owusu has called on President Nana Akufo-Addo to revoke the Major Mahama Bill passed by Parliament.

The Legislative House on Thursday passed the bill into an Act.

It is to give effect to the President's commitment to establish a Memorial Trust Fund with GHC 500,000 seed money to honour the memory of the late Major Mahama.

A memorandum to the bill stated that "it has become necessary to draft this bill considering the circumstances under which the officer died while on a national duty.”

The fund is intended to adequately cater for the widow, Barbara Mahama and her children with the deceased until she remarries. The money will be channeled to the welfare and upkeep of the children including their education.

But to the PPP stalwart, the bill is flawed and should be scrapped because it doesn't encourage rule of law.

According to Nana Ofori Owusu, he will only accept the bill if it's passed to cater for all security personnel in Ghana who lose their lives in line of duty.

He noted that the law makers cannot pass a bill to favor an individual, meanwhile there are other security personnel who equally suffer the same fate as the late Major Mahama.

Without sounding insensitive to the widow's predicament, Nana Ofori Owusu told sit-in host Nana Yaw Kesseh on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' that if the Parliamentarians "pass a bill for one person and don’t do it for all security personnel who lose their lives in the line of duty but for just one person, I think it’s a very bad bill. It’s a very, very bad bill".

He expressed utter shock over the character of the law makers asking "what have we done for the families of all the other security personnel who have lost their lives in the line of duty . . . I’m surprised that the August House of Parliament has passed this Bill. I am so shocked. How can we sit in a country and pass an entire Bill for one person when we’re talking about the many, many, many, many Police Officers who have been killed by armed robbers in the course of protecting us while we asleep and many soldiers who have lost their lives?”

Nana Ofori Owusu importuned the President to the bill as "awful" and "kindly in your wisdom, do not append your signature to this bill that's been personalized to individual”.

"You can’t personalize law," he directed it to the Parliamentarians.