Assessment of political parties starts from Monday July 3 – EC
Mills cautions against vague promises by politicians
Lawyers urged to ensure people's participation in decision-making
Adopt a cross-border approach to building of reliable electricity grid – Tsatsu
Accra (Greater Accra) 30 June 2000
The preliminary nation-wide assessment of political parties to ensure that their operations are in conformity with constitutional provisions and the Political Parties Law (Act 574) starts from Monday, July 3.
Ghana News Agency (GNA) investigations reveal that a checklist for the inspection of the national, regional and district offices of political parties includes the declaration of assets. This includes the nature of office facility, date and mode of acquisition and the number of rooms and office equipment.
The parties are also to disclose the type of furniture in use, payment of the salaries of party office permanent staff, utility bills and other party expenditures.
The checklist is based on sections 15(1) 13(1) of the political parties Act 2000. It states that within 90 days after the issue to it of final certificate of registration, a political party shall furnish the commission with details of the existence and location of its national, regional, district and constituency offices or such longer period as the commission may allow.
The parties are to submit to the commission a written declaration of cash or kind donations made to the initial assets of the party by its founding members.
The commission's assessment lists also require the political parties to declare the contributions by citizens in the form of dues and donations in cash and kind.
Section 23 of the act states that the commission should also be informed about contributions or donations in cash or kind, property and time of acquisition and audited accounts for the year.
These are constitutional and statutory provisions that the parties are required to meet and make available to the commission for verification.
The Act says this shall be supported by a statutory declaration made by the national treasurer and the national or general secretary of the party.
The GNA investigations also revealed that political parties are to provide the particulars of their national, regional and district officers. EC would require their names and voter ID card numbers, residential addresses and the name and address of the auditor of the party.
Act 574 section 7(2) and 15(2a and 2b) state that a political party shall not have as a founding member, a leader or a member of its executive a person who is not qualified to be elected as a member of parliament or is not qualified to hold any public office.
The Act says a political party shall submit to the commission the names, titles and addressees of its officers at the national, regional, district and constituency levels and also at such other levels of organisation as the commission may direct and the name and address of the auditors.
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Tarkwa (Eastern Region) 30 June 2000
Vice-President John Evans Atta Mills said on Saturday that the solution to Ghana's economic problems does not lie in which party one belongs to but on how Ghanaians can join hands together in unity and peace to push the country forward.
Professor Mills made this observation when he addressed members of the Wassa Fiase Traditional Council at Tarkwa as part of his four-day working visit to the Western Region.
He said no particular party has the magic wand to solve the country's economic woes and, therefore, appealed to the chiefs and people of Tarkwa not to allow themselves to be deceived by wild and vague promises from politicians.
Prof. Mills admitted that Ghanaians were facing hardships but explained that this was due to global inflation and the falling prices of cocoa and gold.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 30 June 2000
Professor Kofi Kumado, Associate Professor at the Law Faculty, University of Ghana, Legon, on Thursday charged legal practitioners to devise strategies that would enable the ordinary citizenry to participate vigorously and permanently in the decision-making process.
He made the call when he presented his last paper in a series of the Koranteng-Addow-Adjepong-Sarkodie Memorial Lectures in Accra.
By so doing, Prof. Kumado said, lawyers would be doing a great honour to the memory of the three High Court judges and a retired army officer who were abducted from their homes and murdered in cold blood in the early hours of June 30, 1982.
They were Mrs Justice Cecilia Koranteng-Addow, Mr Justice Fred Poku-Sarkodie, and Mr Justice Kwadwo Agyei Agyepong. The army officer was Major Sam Acquah.
In 1985, during the Presidency of Mr Peter Ala Adjetey, the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) instituted these annual lectures, also known as the Martyrs Day Lectures, in memory of the four persons because they were "Ministers of Justice who died for the Rule of Law and the Independence of the Judiciary".
The two-day lecture had as its theme "Justiciability, Rule of Law and the 1992 Constitution".
Prof. Kumado, who is also Chairman of the International Commission of Jurists, said a society based on the Rule of Law is not simply one governed by law, though the existence of law is an important starting point.
Rather, he said, it provides the measuring rod for separating good law from bad one.
"The concept addresses the establishment of individual freedoms and their protection against any manifestation of arbitrary power by the public authorities."
Prof. Kumado noted that, for the Rule of Law to flourish, there is the urgent need for an independent and impartial judiciary, a courageous body of lawyers, and the judicious use of public facilities and resources for the benefit of the ordinary people.
He said public opinion must be seen as an important pillar of the Rule of Law, for if public opinion perceives law as a societal ally then the Rule of Law is taking root because the public will automatically respect the law.
He expressed regret, however, that since independence, the Ghanaian society has been one that cannot be said to be based on the Rule of Law because "our society has been government-centred rather than people-centred".
Prof. Kumado, first Chairman of the National Media Commission, noted that, at the moment, the Constitution is dominated by the Executive, pointing out that "the...Executive we have in our Constitution is an unfortunate relic of our colonial experience."
He said the other two key centres of power, the Legislature and Judiciary, "have in the mean time received debilitating blows from time to time", whose psychological impact has led to the reality that neither of the two arms of government "is really able to act as a true countervailing force to the Executive".
For this reason, Prof. Kumado stressed the urgent need "to constitutionalise our Constitution" so as to introduce a true balance among the centres of power.
On the appointment of judges, he suggested that there should be a clear-cut, transparent and publicly-accessible criteria for those appointments, especially the Judges of the Superior Court of Judicature.
The day will be rounded off with a Martyrs' Day Remembrance Service at the Christ the King Catholic Church on Friday.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 30 June 2000
Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), has advocated a cross-border approach to the building of a reliable electricity grid for the sub-region.
He said the development of such an infrastructure using natural gas would reverse the tag on the sub-region as one of the regions of the world with the lowest levels of commercial energy consumption per capita.
Mr Tsikata was speaking at an electric and power conference as part of the ongoing West Africa Mining and Power conference in Accra.
It attracted participants from Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, South Africa as well as Europe.
Mr Tsikata said it was unfortunate that the potential of natural gas as a cost-effective means and attractive solution to meeting the increasing power demands in West Africa was not appreciated until recently.
"It is rather surprising that in West Africa, particularly with the well-known size of Nigerian gas reserves, there has not been a deeper appreciation of the potential for extensive utilisation of natural gas for power generation."
Mr Tsikata said the use of natural gas as a cost effective means of power generation would spur activities in the mining industry and lead to economic development in all sectors of the economy.
"A close collaboration between the mining and the energy sectors would optimise investment opportunities being made in those sectors and stimulate the economic development of the region, since power transmission lines to the mining areas would also provide power to areas along the way."
Mr Tsikata noted that a sure way of establishing a reliable long-term gas-fired power in the region is to make use of the reserve base of Nigeria estimated at some 120 trillion cubic feet.
Nigeria flares daily between three and four billion cubic feet of natural gas, which is enough to generate about 20,000 megawatts of power, more than the existing installed capacity in the sub-region.
Mr Tsikata said a regional gas transportation system that gives access to Nigerian reserves would consolidate the long-term sustainability of gas-fired power and lead to cross-border investment in interconnections in the region.
He said the participation of mining companies in power arrangements would provide a basis for investment in power supply and transmission networks leading to increase gas transportation infrastructure and a reduction in the delivery price of gas for the power sector.
Mr Tsikata said the large deposit gives urgency to the West African Gas Pipeline Project being developed by a consortium made up of Chevron, GNPC, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Shell as well as the two gas companies of Togo and Benin.
He said the governments of the countries involved in the project have since 1995 signed agreements and further agreements are being negotiated between them and the commercial consortium to enable the project to take off.
Giving the example of Ghana, Mr Tsikata said the success of the economic recovery programme and the surge in mining activities in Ghana have led to increasing demands for electricity of between 10 and 15 per cent per annum.
This has necessitated the need for alternative means of power supply to meet the increasing demand.
He said the importance of natural gas in meeting the energy needs of Ghana derives from the uncertainties in the rainfall pattern and the savings to be made switching from liquid fuel. There are also environmental benefits.
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