President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Tuesday indicated support for Constitutional amendment that would empower Parliament to exercise full authority over public finances.
Acknowledging though that consensus had not yet been reached on that roadmap, he stated, “I belong to the group that feels strongly that our Parliament should be able to exercise full authority over our public finances…if this were done, it would enhance significantly Parliament’s oversight capacity.”
Delivering a speech on the theme “Ghana, A Rising Star of Africa”, at an event organised by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, in Berlin, Germany, President Akufo-Addo, himself a lawyer, admitted that Constitutional amendment was not an easy task, explaining that “we take our politics very seriously, and we are passionate about our beliefs, and it would not be easy to make such a change or any change, for that matter, to the Constitution.”
President Akufo-Addo commended the immediate past Chief Justice, Georgina Theodora Wood, for her role in redeeming the Judiciary by instituting far reaching reforms to purge the institution of perceived corruption.
“Ghanaians have not yet lived down the trauma of the excruciating shock and embarrassment of seeing officers of our courts in such compromising situations, following the Anas exposé of corruption in the Judiciary.
“But, I am glad to be able to say that our Chief Justice, Georgina Theodora Wood, Ghana’s first female Chief Justice, quickly rose to the occasion and introduced reforms to restore some dignity to the Judiciary,” he said.
He was confident that the new prospective Chief Justice, Justice Sophia Akuffo, “will be an effective leader of the Judiciary, and guard jealously its independence. She will bring honour to the Judiciary and to our country.”
The President indicated that his administration was open to constructive criticism which usually came from the media and threw an invitation to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation to step its support for the capacity development of media practitioners back home.
“We probably have one of the most vibrant media on the African continent, if not in the world. Like many of the other institutions of state, the media in Ghana came into its own in the Fourth Republic, where the national Constitution guarantees freedom of the media.
“It is a loud and crowded media that we now have, and some feel that many journalists err on the side of recklessness. There is a lot to teach and to train those who practice journalism in our country, but, I must say, I would much rather have the loud and reckless media than the meek and praise singing one that used to characterize our newspapers, radio and television,” he said.